The common thread I’ve seen online is this:

• Google’s search algorithm sucks. I always append reddit.com to get good forum results
• Reddit’s search algorithm sucks.

These two tools are quickly becoming coupled for Google-Fu expert users. The historical forum history that goes back 3-5 years on Reddit is their goldmine. You can’t just make a new subreddit overnight when a sub gets paywalled. All of that historical data will be lost and paywalled.

I think a paywall could be an effective money maker for Reddit because they’ve basically become their own Google - in that each subreddit acts like a unique website with real, human, responses. The only problem is that reddit has a god awful search algorithm that they refuse to improve. So people use Google to essentially search reddit. The “whales” so-to-speak are the only people they need to capture. People like myself (frugal people) aren’t in their peripherals. But the people that think “I’ll pay each month for NYT” or “it’s just a few dollars for the WSJ” are going to use the same logic for Reddit: “it’s a small amount of money to have access to high quality forums on X, Y, and Z”.

In addition, this might bolster Reddit’s content even further. Since paywalled subs will automatically reduce the amount of AI content spammed on them, they will inherently increase the legitimacy of each forum.

Lastly, this will give them a path towards monetization for moderators which doesn’t require them skimming off of their own pay checks to achieve it.

Do I like this? No. Is this fair? Also no. People contributed to Reddit under the impression that their data would be available and accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. That implicit guarantee is being violated. It’s an afront to the hard working individuals that have developed these communities brick by brick.

But does this “solution” make a lot of business sense? Possibly. As long as they survive the changeover in the short term, I think they’ll thrive from this choice for the reasons I stated above.

Again, it’s going to give them a pathway for:

• Monetization
• Reduce AI spam (a big fear of all forums)
• They could make even more money off the back of this

I’m pretty much over Reddit anyways. Lemmy has been my backup social media for a while now. The Internet is still free - for now. I just hope we can all find better search engines and forums in the future. Google has been degrading. Reddit has been locking things down. We obviously need to pivot to other platforms. Or maybe just go back to the old days where you find niche forums hosted by some dude in his basement. Nothing wrong with that.

I think you’re thinking of users’ ages not posters’ age. They don’t verify the age of people watching videos and they are publicly against that. I don’t know how they feel about validating the age of people in videos.

People don’t like to admit that we are ants. We are valuable and important. Each one of us is unique and deserves a full, good, life. But we are also ants. We are susceptible to group think, mob behavior, and we tend to follow the scent trail most of the time. It’s not a bad thing. It’s tied to our evolutionary desire to be a part of a community; to fit in and blend in.

But it also means individuals are likely to do what keeps them alive. We are likely all bad in some way or another.

But as long as you aren’t, actively, willfully, or gleefully harming people, you’re probably ok.

Well I’m guessing they actually did testing on local AI using a 4GB and 8GB RAM laptop and realized it would be an awful user experience. It’s just too slow.

I wish they rolled it in as an option though.

I think it makes sense. I like ChatGPT and I appreciate having easy access to it. What I really wish is the option to use local models instead. I realize most people don’t have machines that can tokenize quickly enough but for those that do…

Why didn’t you like Hashicorps Vault? I want to know for my own edification.

I hope so. I don’t want to manage two different address spaces in my head. I prefer if one standard is just the standard.

Laughter helps a lot. But if I’m consuming a ton of media, it’s sometimes better to just take a break and drink water while doing nothing else. I also have mantras about life like: “if I have my family, I’m ok”, “home can be anywhere”, “nothing in life is more important that food, shelter, water”, etc. Sometimes I worry about bills, future costs, etc. But worrying doesn’t always make it easier. A little bit of worry keeps me from ignoring finances all together. But too much worry isn’t helping. If you can free yourself from worrying about money, you’d be surprised how much weight gets lifted. I’m privileged because I have family and friends that I love. If I ever hit hard times, I know I have a home with them. Reminding myself of that keeps me from staying up all night with worry.

Lay it on me