Reddit, the popular social media platform, recently declared that they will start charging Big Tech companies to access conversations data through its Application Programming Interface (API). Companies such as Microsoft, Google and OpenAI have previously been using Reddit's free API to train their language models. The fee model and access provided to developers and researchers are yet to be disclosed, however, developers who are building applications and researchers conducting non-commercial activities will still have access to the tool for free. The data collected by Reddit can be used to train AI algorithms to answer questions.

AI companies heavily rely on text and image data to train their algorithms and Reddit's quality data will be immensely beneficial in doing so. Reddit's CEO, Steve Huffman, believes that people are more candid on the platform than in a support group or therapy session and will accordingly help in improving the AI answers. The company's new move comes after Twitter restricting access to its API and OpenAI facing criticism for their opacity in protecting user data used in their algorithms.

Reddit is also planning on going for an IPO soon and is actively exercising its monetization options, albeit, not with the aim of major profits but covering its own operating costs. Its decision has not been well received by its users as seen with one user asking people to spread the word, encouraging a full reversal. For third-party commercial bots, Reddit offered access to data at $99 upwards while they recently launched Polygon-based Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) Avatar.

Overall, Reddit's move towards charging Big Tech firms to access conversation data through its API is aimed towards monetizing the platform while still offering free access to developers who are building useful applications and researchers doing non-commercial activities. The data collected by Reddit will help in generating better AI answer and enhance the authenticity as it is more open to conversations compared to support and therapy groups. This monetization drive will help Reddit in operating and making a profit from its platform.



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