Topline
With more than 50% of subreddits still observing a blackout to protest Reddit’s planned platform changes, a popular Google search hack for yielding more useful results has been rendered moot, presenting a potential opportunity for both Google and Microsoft Bing’s chatbots to fill in the gaps.
Reddit’s proposed changes to its API pricing structure has triggered a protest from the biggest … [+]
Key Facts
Adding the phrase “+reddit” or simply “reddit” to a search query on Google has long been a common hack used to find human answers to questions—especially oncomplex tech issues, offbeat product recommendations and finding sources for obscure content.
Even Google appears to have acknowledged the usefulness of this feature at its most recent I/O conference—which was heavily focused on AI—by promising to add a “Perspectives” section, which will provide human-generated results to search queries from platforms like Reddit.
However, many of these search results—along with several instances where Reddit posts show up at the top of Google searches by default—have been rendered useless by the ongoing protest that began on Monday.
A key advantage “+reddit” results have over regular Google search results is that it surfaces the platform best and most useful answers that have received the most upvotes from users, making it immune to so-called search engine optimization (SEO) tricks.
This issue has even been brought up by Reddit’s users, who point out that the blackout has made it “hard to find anything” on Google.
Tryout: Bard And Bing Vs. +reddit
A short experiment using both Google Bard and Bing’s GPT-4 powered chatbot as alternatives to the “+reddit” hack yielded mixed results, as neither platform truly offers a replacement for the community aspect of Reddit. Like Reddit, both chatbots were capable of offering broad recommendations for content, including miniseries to watch on HBO Max and games to play on Xbox Game Pass. But these answers appear to largely rely on websites that appear on the top of both Google and Bing search results—so users who are not happy with those results will not find anything new from the chatbots. The AI bots also shied away from firm opinions when asked to choose the better of two options, unlike human users on Reddit. On narrower technical issues, like integrating an obscure brand of smart light with the smart home platform “Home Assistant,” Bard and Bing appeared far less useful, with Microsoft’s chatbot failing to answer the query while Google’s service offered two separate solutions, only one of which appears to work. An easy answer to the query could quickly be found on the r/HomeAssistant subreddit, which appears to currently not be part of the blackout.
Big Number
4,882. That is the total number of subreddits that are still observing a blackout as of Friday morning, according to a tracker. These include many of Reddit’s most active communities with millions of users, including r/funny, r/science and r/Music. The protest began on Monday and was initially scheduled to last 48 hours, but plan to continue indefinitely until Reddit agrees to roll back its planned API changes.
Key Background
More than 8,000 subreddits joined the blackout protest on Monday to oppose Reddit’s plan to begin charging for its API. The API, or Application Programming Interface, was used by several popular third-party apps like Apollo to access the site and was often the preferred choice for power users over Reddit’s official app. However, Reddit’s new policy will charge third-party app developers up to $0.24 for every 1,000 API calls, which Apollo creator Christian Selig says will end up costing his app $20 million a year. This Selig says has effectively forced him to shut down his popular app, with several other popular third-party apps also following suit. Reddit has so far refused to budge on the API changes despite the protests and on Thursday the company’s CEO Steve Huffman said the platform is mulling changes that will allow users to override moderators organizing the blackout.
Tangent
Google isn’t the only platform that appears to be impacted by the Reddit protests. Alternative search engines like crowdview.ai and Swurl appear to also be hit, as they rely on social media platforms and forums like Reddit, YouTube, Twitter and Stack Exchange to generate their results. Reddit results feature heavily on Crowdview, while Swurl has a column dedicated specifically to the site. However, many of these results now point to popular subreddits that are inaccessible at the moment.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2023/06/16/reddits-blackout-has-broken-a-popular-google-search-hack-can-bard-and-chatgpt-offer-an-alternative/