Why all of a sudden tech companies are not being favorable to their users?
YouTube disallowing adblockers, Reddit charging for API usage, Twitter blocking non-registered users. These events happen almost at the same time. Is this one of the effects of the tech bubble burst?
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There are a lot of reasons for this general trend, but let me add my two cents to make a case for the sudden influx of user-opposed changes:
I don't have a source for this, but I remember that Linus spoke about this on the LTT WAN-Show. Basically, abunch of big silicon valley investors are pulling out of all of the big platforms, therefore leaving them with a huge hole in their profitability. This means, that right now a lot of them are scrambling to scrape together more money over time, so all of those platforms are sustainable.
Obviously this has to observed in conjunction with all of those are trends that are already mentioned by other comments, but this gives more basis as to why now, and why to this extent.
If someone else knows what I'm talking about please add quotes and sources because I don't like the good old 'dude trust me' guarantee one bit.
Reddit API charges: Reddit announced it would begin charging for use of its API, specifically for companies that crawl Reddit for data without providing any value back to the users. This change does not apply to developers building apps and bots that enhance the Reddit experience, or to researchers using the API for academic or noncommercial purposes. Reddit's move is tied to its attempt to monetize the vast array of user-generated content on its platform, which includes data used to train text-generating machine learning models like OpenAI's ChatGPT. This announcement comes as Reddit is preparing for a potential IPO later this year. It is estimated that Reddit made $350 million from ads in 2021, a figure that pales in comparison to Meta's and Twitter's ad revenues 1
Twitter's "Ad-pocalypse": Twitter saw a significant drop in advertising revenue in December 2022, with ad spending from top brands falling by 71% compared to the same month in the previous year. Major corporations have been pressuring Twitter over its decision to restore banned conservative accounts. There was a similar decrease of 55% in November 2022 compared to November 2021. Twitter relied on ads for 89% of its $5.08 billion revenue in 2021, so this decrease in ad revenue is likely a significant factor in Twitter's estimated value reduction. Corporate advertising boycotts have often been used in the past to pressure social media platforms into adopting stricter censorship policies 2
VC moving to greener pastures: There has been a significant increase in VC and PE investment into climate tech, which includes technologies focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In the first half of 2021 alone, climate tech attracted over $60 billion in investment, which is a 210% increase from the $28.4 billion invested in the 12 months prior. This shift has been driven by a renewed focus on ESG in private markets, emerging regulations and standards, and more companies committing to net-zero strategies. The United States leads in climate tech investing, attracting nearly 65% of VC investment, $56.6 billion from H2 2020 to H1 2021 3
Note: Sources not all quite unbiased. Take a grain of salt.