• schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business
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    2 months ago

    The company reported nearly 100 million monthly users, an increase of 47% from the year prior

    My bullshit-o-meter is pegged at 11.

    I’ve been on reddit lately and I’ll eat my shoe if that 50% increase was in any way actual real humans, because there’s no damn way.

    • L3ft_F13ld!@links.hackliberty.org
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      2 months ago

      At this point I’m pretty sure it’s bots all the way down. And whatever isn’t a bot is someone pretending to be someone else or some other BS.

    • Beetschnapps@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      So my experience aligns to this as well, but I have to say, while there’s plenty of evidence of bot traffic and overall lack of “content”…

      There is ZERO evidence that matters. If a business model can be created to take advantage of that fact then your (I’ll also say OUR) argument of people vs bots is irrelevant and this is your new internet… unless you have an investor in your back pocket they are dictating tomorrow not anyone’s desire for real shit.

      Their stock prices soar, trump is elected, we all keep saying “but what if X” hoping in a dependency while others say fuck that and make up tomorrow in their own.

    • BombOmOm@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      This was the reason they made the API changes. They wanted to charge for easy access to the content. Sure, you can scrape every Reddit page, but nobody has time for that. Pay up and hoover down Reddit comments for you AI training.

      • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        It also forced users onto their app, which creates a captive market for force-serving ads disguised as content.

    • Everett@reddthat.com
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      20 days ago

      You have to pay if you want to sign in, but you can stay logged out and subscribe to subreddits for free.