Technology

37730 readers

196 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

159

Google Is the Only Search Engine That Works on Reddit Now, Thanks to AI Deal (www.404media.co)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

43 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

In 2023, Reddit decided to start charging exorbitant amounts for API access, making it non-viable for free 3rd party apps to access its content, citing things like AI crawlers "stealing" their (users') content.

In 2024, Google announced an agreement with Reddit to access the API, citing things like enhanced up to date search results. I don't recall having seen whether they pay for it, or how much, but possibly they do.

It would stand to reason, that if Reddit has managed to get a single dime for API access, and they keep thinking free access to their users' content is "stealing", then Reddit would be interested in making it as hard as possible to access the content without paying.

Could be threat of punishment: “You give us exclusive crawl access, or we don’t crawl you”.

That could've been part of the agreement: "You give us cheap/free API access, or we don't crawl you".

Reddit tightening things down while trying to sell API access, just happens to benefit Google.