Reddit just turned a profit for the first time. As part of its third quarter earnings results released on Tuesday, the company reported a profit of $29.9 million, along with $348.4 million in revenue — a 68 percent increase year over year.
The company hasn’t been profitable at any point in its nearly 20-year history. Since going public, Reddit lost $575 million during its first quarter on the market, but it decreased that loss to $10 million last quarter and is now finally in the black.
Reddit’s advertising revenue grew to $315.1 million, while “other” revenue reached $33.2 million on account of “data licensing agreements signed earlier this year.” Both Google and OpenAI have cut deals with Reddit to train their AI models on its posts.
So they sold their data for a one off payment and stuffed the platform with so many bots and astroturf accounts that it is effectively poisoned against being a reliable source for future AI data licensing.
Yeah they’re so fucking cooked hahahahaha
This is also “profitable” with some big air quotes, they still have to make back all of that money they lost.