I think the word “data” also supports the theory that this is actually about training data for LLMs rather than ad revenue. If it was actually about 3rd party apps, then why not just require all apps to feed the ads? But according to the Apollo developer, there wasn’t even a way to fetch the ads through the API.

I think spez saw what OpenAI/Microsoft were accomplishing using parsed data and got dollar signs in his eyes. The irony is that OpenAI probably already ripped every comment off Reddit up until now, and don’t really need more going forward.

Every day, I open jerboa and see like 5x more communities with a lot of activity. If we can keep up this level of growth for another week or so, then i don’t think I’ll miss Reddit much. Especially if i really have to download the official app. On the other hand, if Reddit backs down at the last minute and agrees to allow third party apps, then i could see lemmy users going back to Reddit out of habit.