As Reddit stock falls, CEO questions value of Google's AI Overviews

andy99•about 2 hours ago

I can’t stand AI overviews in almost all situations. There’s something both untrustworthy about it and also the idea that something is being shoved down my throat, like someone is trying to tell me how to think. Plus it basically spoils any kind of discovery, I don’t need the internet treating me like a caricature of an executive that needs everything to cut to the heart of the matter, I’m mostly browsing the internet for leisure anyway, and even if I’m not I want to see the nuance myself.

Any “summarize with AI” is clearly one of those solution looking for a problem things, AI can do it so it gets added in whether anyone wants it or not.

treetalker•about 1 hour ago

Sometimes a user-initiated overview is helpful to winnow wheat from chaff. Even when I'm using a filter for better material like HN, most of the articles (really, the authors) seem unable to get to the f— point. I blame, in equal shares, the attention economy and lack of writing skills.

I finally lost patience and set up a bookmarklet that grabs the current URL, opens a new tab, plops the URL into a Kagi Assistant prompt (using DeepSeek V4 Flash) along with the phrase "What's the point?", and sends it off. It seems to give better results than the vanilla Kagi Summarizer.

al_borland•about 1 hour ago

They’re pushing existing users away, and are downright hostile to new users due to all the anti-spam measures… but it’s Google’s fault…

inigyou•about 1 hour ago

Well, they pivoted from a discussion forum, to a frozen dump of past discussions to be sold to Google, specifically, for AI training. In that sense, it is Google's fault that Google isn't giving them more money.

cyanydeez•about 1 hour ago

Their hostility is because they own sometging thats akin to a public utility and it can only be mined for monetary gain that destroys its value.

mpfh•23 minutes ago

Folks, as fun as it is to harp on Reddit, much of the web has felt a sharp decline due to the intermediaries either scanning content and presenting it at their shopfront, or in the case of something like YouTube and other creative spaces, outright stealing the voice, look, and other features of the people involved.

There is a problem, but pointing at Reddit and laughing as some kind of schadenfreude at this point means it’s a matter of time before it is pointed at you.

acdha•4 minutes ago

I agree to some extent—the bulk of the real damage came from Google declaring war on the open web and companies like Facebook manipulating the ad market to harm publishers (pivot to video fraud)—but Reddit saw that happening and decided to join in. They torched one of the best and most loyal communities rather than pushing back against the scrapers, and that really caps the amount of sympathy I have for them.

paulpauper•about 1 hour ago

The AI overviews are utter bullshit. Either old ,unrelated information or wrong.

As Reddit stock falls, CEO questions value of Google's AI Overviews

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