Reddit CEO says it’s “a real pain in the ass to block these companies" from crawling the site, says Microsoft refuses to negotiate
Microsoft doesn’t want to play ball with Reddit by paying them, says Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, explaining why Google is getting better data.
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What you need to know
Another week and more drama between modern tech giants Microsoft and Reddit (and we’ll throw OpenAI and Google into the mix). Last week,it was reportedthat Microsoft’s Bing search engine is not surfacing AI-powered summaries (or, at least, not as much as it used to) because it did not reach a deal with Reddit to use the data.
However, while that is accurate, the original Reddit PR comment implied that there were negotiations between Microsoft (and AI search rivals Anthropic and Perplexity). The companies merely had not reached a deal, noting, “… We have been in discussions with multiple search engines. We have been unable to reach agreements with all of them, since some are unable or unwilling to make enforceable promises regarding their use of Reddit content, including their use for AI."
Now, Reddit’s CEO Steve Huffman is being blunter, claiming ina recent interview withThe Vergethat Microsoftrefusesto negotiate with the massive online site, suggesting that it doesn’t want to pay a dime for the data.
That’s a very different spin from “unable to reach agreements”.
Microsoft has not responded toThe Vergeabout the claim so far, leaving some skepticism on the table until it does.
Moreover, Huffman says it’s “a real pain in the ass to block these companies” from scrapping its site for data to train its AI. For its part, Microsoftisrespecting the robots.txt standard which blocks companies like Microsoft from scrapping Reddit’s data.
Where all of this goes remains to be seen.
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If Microsoft wants to be taken seriously as a search engine, ignoring Reddit and giving users one more reason to use Google will seem counterintuitive to growing marketshare. On the other hand, once Microsoft reaches a deal with Reddit, it will likely have to deal withalldigital publishers (includingFuture plc, owner ofWindows Central), which is a great thing for publishers but bad for Microsoft’s bottom line since it is getting all the data for free.
Even Microsoft’s big AI partner,OpenAI, is able to use Reddit’s data as Huffman notes it reached a deal with the company earlier this year for itsrecently-unveiled SearchGPT engine.
Indeed, investors are getting a bitantsy with Microsoft’s heavy investment in AI but with little return. And companies like OpenAIare feeling a financial pinchas the cost of scaling outpaces the adoption of recurring revenue streams as consumers see little value. A recent study indicating that30% of AI projects might be abandoned after proof of concept by 2025also does not help the case.
So, will Microsoft end up paying? We’ll have to wait and see.
Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central. He is also the head reviewer,podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007, when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and watches. He has been reviewing laptops since 2015 and is particularly fond of 2-in-1 convertibles, ARM processors, new form factors, and thin-and-light PCs. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.
