this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2025
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Reddit Blames Google Algorithm Changes For Not Hitting User Growth. (www.seroundtable.com)
submitted 3 months ago by Cat@ponder.cat to c/technology@lemmy.world
45 comments fedilink hide all child comments
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[–] Obelix@feddit.org 141 points 3 months ago (6 children)

If you think about it:

  1. Reddit gives Google access to everything so that Google can train their AI
  2. Google is now showing AI generated snippets on every search page and is pushing its own AI chatbot everywhere
  3. Users are getting the answer they want from those AI generated answers Google generated from Reddit comments
  4. Traffic to Reddit is collapsing

In the meantime, spez totally trashed his site, destroyed valuable communities and pushed away the mods that keep the place clean. Really, really great business strategy there.

[–] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 45 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The really amazing thing is that spez's planet-sized ego created the whole user exodus. People were willing to pay a monthly fee to continue to use the site ad-free via our mobile apps. Hundreds of other companies remove ads when people pay fees, but all of that revenue is just gone along with a big chunk of contributors because spez had a tantrum.

[–] DarkFuture@lemmy.world 12 points 3 months ago

At this point Spez's idiocy is common knowledge.

The whole 3rd party app debacle cemented it.

[–] CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 41 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Reddit gives Google access to everything so that Google can train their AI

Reddit sold access. For short term gains. Because the quarter needed more money to beat the previous quarter.

If this isn't a leopard eating their face moment, I don't know what is.

[–] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 months ago

Capitalism will sell you the rope to hang it.

[–] JacksonLamb@lemmy.world 16 points 3 months ago

the answer they want from those AI generated answers Google generated from Reddit comments

Basically Reddit has now exported being confidently incorrect.

At least on actual reddit you could scroll down and find the actual answer. Some of those AI summaries are hot garbage.

[–] futatorius@lemm.ee 11 points 3 months ago (2 children)

It'll be deeply satisfying if spez ends up with nothing. His mismanagement and tolerance for fascism are why I quit using the site.

[–] j4yt33@feddit.org 6 points 3 months ago

CEOs rarely end up with nothing, unfortunately

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 3 months ago

Would love to see him be forced to sell his corny fucking doomsday bunker

[–] RandAlThor@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 months ago

Yeah that's exactly it. I no longer use reddit. when I do searches reddit does come up. But I don't need to go onto reddit because AI summarizes things. And I skip reddit anyways in the search results.

[–] MangoCats@feddit.it 0 points 3 months ago

spez has too much money to care.

What's the point of being Uberwealthy if you can't just do whatever you want, whenever you want?

People keep quoting that Musk gave DT $250million to support his campaign, like hell... Musk bought Twitter and ran it into the ground to support DT's campaign, that was far more significant, and far more costly than a mere $250M.

[–] ATDA@lemmy.world 128 points 3 months ago

Just Google. Not killing mobile apps, not packing more ads than posts, packing more bots than users....

[–] db2@lemmy.world 66 points 3 months ago (1 children)

"It's everyone except me at fault!" - Steve Huffman

[–] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 63 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Huffman: "Is it our shitty policies towards users, AI developers, and moderators that caused our growth to show down? No it must be Google! Even though they are ranking us higher than we deserve in their search results!"

First off all, what an idiot. Second, you made the deal with them, ya fucking idiot!

Third, I've noticed when I go to reduce from a search engine result, the UI is horrible (because I'm not logged in). Like, significantly worse than it used to be several years ago when I've wasn't logged in.

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 19 points 3 months ago (1 children)

My browser extension that forces old Reddit is essential for this reason. The new UI is a cluttered mess

[–] thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 3 months ago

I refuse to use the new site, its crap. And on old. from mobile, it always opens images and videos in a new tab with the new interface, its worthless!

if I have to use a reddit page from work, I always change it to old.

when that old. stops working, I will never visit that site again

[–] whynotzoidberg@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

On iOS, “Sink It” makes running into a Reddit page palatable again.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 55 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Orrrrrrrr, and hear me out......you decided to do AI banning, where bots ban humans, with no human oversight, and you assume that somehow the humans will flock to this platform that becomes increasingly hostile towards it's users.

Then you sit back and wonder why you're not growing.

Humans like staying where they're appriciated. You're showing that you appriciate money over humans. Now you blame google. I'm not one usually to root for google, but I hope they pimp slap spez across his stupid little face.

[–] Majorllama@lemmy.world 12 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Is that why my multiple accounts with hundreds of thousands of karma were all nuked simultaneously and I was never told why?

Fuckin AI nuked my shit?

I tried to appeal but it was instantly denied and even though I asked what rule they are claiming I broke I still got no answers.

Fuckin AI....

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

That is EXACTLY what happened. And whats worse is there are people on Lemmy, who left before that started, who say things like "nobody is banned for nothing. You probably deserved it."

And yet I've had countless encounters who seemingly fit the same criteria.

Long time regular user, didn't buy the reddit IPO, many were offered but not all. Then one day, permanently suspended and all appeals fail. Most instantly, but none so far taking longer than a day.

[–] futatorius@lemm.ee 4 points 3 months ago

That's been happening for a while, even before AI came in. Fascist mods pretending to be on the spectrum had the same result: bizarre, contorted interpretations of rules, selectively applied with zero-tolerance. Always in subs with a population of fascist mods, and always applied against people making anti-fascist comments. What a fucking coincidence.

[–] boxfulloffoxes@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

99% sure - all the messages say "this action was performed automatically" and if I DO get a reply to a service ticket via email, it says "Thank you for your request, it has been received!" Which means they're continually closing the ticket I'm replying to asking for help.

[–] Majorllama@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Well sucks for them I guess. Maybe they shouldn't have banned a contributing user for no apparent reason.

Oh well. Couldn't have happened to a worse website.

[–] futatorius@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I made sure to replace all my comments and posts with obscene lorem ipsum before leaving.

[–] Majorllama@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

That seems like a lot more work that it's worth lol

[–] boxfulloffoxes@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Yes, AND STILL - for someone whose only connection to those communities is online, still really sucks. Hopefully they reform elsewhere after the eventual implosion.

[–] T156@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

Not only that, but they actively hindered any external tools. If you're Blind and Reddit's accessibility isn't good enough? Tough luck.

Whereas back in the day, someone might have built a more accessible app, if Reddit hadn't had one.

[–] DarkFuture@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

The AI moderation was it for me.

The only way reddit is useful to me now is for finding user's answers to questions using a google search. For which I do not need to login or contribute to the site.

[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 41 points 3 months ago

Honestly such a poor excuse given literally every other google search yields reddit as a top result.

[–] jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 28 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Huffman and Co. are apparently oblivious to the fact that Reddit is and has always been a niche "social media" platform. They're more closely related to forums than mainstream social media.

I'm just making wild assertions here but somehow I think that the thing I liked about Reddit is also the thing the average TikTok/Insta/Snapchat/Facebook user does not like. That being that Reddit is mostly text based and requires lots of reading and writing (if you want to interact on any meaningful way). The only other thing they offer is meme scrolling and that can be done pretty much anywhere.

Adding any substantial user growth would require basically abandoning their entire format and would have a minimal chance of success at best.

[–] firadin@lemmy.world 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I mean that is why the new reddit page is so less information dense and image-heavy. The app also implemented swiping to get you to mindlessly scroll through memes, often into algorithm-recommended subs you're not even subscribed to. It's all an attempt to move the average content toward low-barrier slop thats easy to consume and pad their engagement numbers.

[–] jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 months ago

Ah. So they do recognize the problem and are going with the worst possible strategy.

Trying to compete in the field of "digital landfills", which is already completely saturated, seems like an incredibly stupid idea but what do I know.

[–] muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee 16 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I think we are the primary alternative platform. We really need to improve ui/ux if we wanna keep tightening those screws. And for fucks sake can we get fediversal accounts already. We had 1 job (inter operability) and we failed with the most important part of that.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 9 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Lemmy devs specifically spent very little time developing the UI because they wanted other devs to step in, and indeed they have with frontends like Photon and Voyager, which both basically couldn't be any better. They're awesome.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 months ago

I like the regular web UI better than the alternatives. It's really pretty good.

[–] kamenlady@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Voyager also has a web ui and not only the app?

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 2 points 3 months ago

Yep! In fact there was no app for a good long while.

[–] muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee 0 points 3 months ago

Well the Lemmy devs should respect thosw deva efforts and make it the default then.

Not that its a problem I deal with tho I almost exclusively use eternity.

[–] TheFriar@lemm.ee 15 points 3 months ago

This is just attention grabbing language for something that really isn’t even a problem for Reddit. The longer recent trend of stunted growth could be cause for concern, but the actual numbers are something like they got 101.6 million unique visitors instead of their projected 103.4. That’s nothing. They’re talking like they’re in free fall. It could be the start of a trend that could be bad for a public company, but realistically, what we’re all hoping to see isnt what this article is actually telling us. Unfortunately.

[–] HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com 6 points 3 months ago

I see reddit links in my searches. Sure as heck don't click on them.

[–] kubica@fedia.io 5 points 3 months ago

Lol, what, reddit is everywhere on google. It is me who clicks anywhere else though.

[–] the_doktor@lemmy.zip 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Reddit: Let's act like trash, basically be the reason Trump became president in the first place (in 2016) by letting his toxic subreddit take over /r/all (seriously, the entire /r/all was filled with that one goddamn subreddit full of lies and bullshit), and allow mods to make bots that silence actual discussion on subreddits by silencing any dissent, no matter how rational or well-intentioned, as well as disallow anyone who is new and has no karma to post, thus making any new user unable to post, period.

Fuck reddit. Fuck reddit up its garbage pile of trash ass.

[–] kikutwo@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

Yeah and they still crushed the ER.

[–] LittleRatInALittleHat@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

There are better decentralized alternatives to this site that aren't controlled by corporate interests that function almost identically to this site.

If we post about it then we get banned tho.

I think i can postt this:

https://youtu.be/TrNE2fSCeFo