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submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

Reddit removes years of chat and message archives from users' accounts::undefined

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[-] frazw@lemmy.world 161 points 1 year ago

My gut tells me they are not deleted but rather simply no longer publicly available. Can't have these pesky AI bots training for free.

[-] dhork@lemmy.world 113 points 1 year ago

I think it's the opposite. These are private chats that can't be sold to the AI, that's why Reddit thinks they're worthless.

[-] Radium@sh.itjust.works 46 points 1 year ago

More likely just moved to cold storage to save money. It’s expensive to keep data in an easily accessible database. If you don’t need to access it you can move it to object storage for pennies on the dollar and still keep it accessible for whatever nefarious data brokers you want to sell it to in the future

[-] muddybulldog@mylemmy.win 42 points 1 year ago

They’re implementing new chat infrastructure and only replicated 2023/01/01 forward. It’s in the article.

[-] towerful@programming.dev 30 points 1 year ago

Oh man.
To be able to have a long running project and decide to truncate years worth of data...
Just, drop it like you never need it again.

Apart from working at Reddit, sounds like a dream

[-] irkli@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

This. My static websites are on GCP with Cloudflare https. Storage costs are almost literally zero. I pay when people access/read. My storage cost is never over 8 bucks/month. Unused, 10 cents a year.

[-] Dalinar@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 year ago

How much data are you storing and how much do you think reddit is?

[-] irkli@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Oh no comparison! Mines like 10 to 50 gb. I assume reddit's is in high terabytes.

The point is cloud services charge for data leaving storage over networks.

Just guessing, and I'm not gonna RTFM and do the math, but for "cold line" storage a static petabyte would be maybe hundreds of dollars/mo max. That's noise to them.

[-] Wheels@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 1 year ago

Right but the difference is Reddit is now charging an extortionate amount for data access via the API when compared to other platforms.
What do you think this (if achieved what was hoped) massive new flow of income was supposed to help sustain?
Oh yeah, infrastructure costs.

[-] irkli@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

GROWTH. The upcoming IPO is for a publicly traded growth corporation. Read about how they work. The side 2ffects are appalling.

It is nothing like you'd imagine a corner store working, where profit is the goal.

[-] Wheels@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Read about how they work.

No need to be quite so condescending is there?
I fully understand how they work.
Seems like this growth they should be trying to achieve is fucking futile when they:

  • cut off the apps that a portion of their most active users use
  • prevent helpful bots (automod etc.) working correctly or being financially viable due to API changes
  • shuttered an award system that helped maintain engagement via vain dopamine acquisition and actively made them money with no replacement in sight other than some data mined financial incentive program which will lead to a lack of genuine discussion
  • spat in the face of their largely volunteer moderation community who volunteer their time for free to help keep things smooth
  • delete the content histories of their users when it isn’t publicly facing. Users give content to platform, that’s how Reddit exists, to remove DMs from users it makes it very apparent they’re content pigs and nothing more. Can’t have a transactional platform (content to profit) if the content doesn’t feel any incentive to use the platform.

Not to mention, infrastructure costs lead to growth.
If you don’t have the resources to support your current platform, you shouldn’t be actively trying to grow the platform by discarding older content. It makes those accessing and making use of the content (be it individual or institutional) lose trust in the quality of data.

Great growth strategy that.

[-] irkli@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

My apologies! I was commenting only on the cost of cold line storage, for the hypothesis reddit is offline storing data, only. I meant, there, to know the cost look for the pricing page it's reasonably readable.

Tbh I find the order of Lemmy reply presentation a bit confusing sometimes.

[-] Rodeo@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

He means the business model they're going for with the IPO.

Growth means the value of the company. The shares. The stockholders getting dividends. It has fuck all to with user experience, or even user growth. It's about manipulating information and using clever accounting to get investors to give you money.

[-] Wheels@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago

The company is worth fuck all if their sole “money generation” process is via user data and authentic conversation.
Users ARE Reddit.
No content, no value.
No value? No dividends.

[-] muddybulldog@mylemmy.win 9 points 1 year ago

They’re implementing new chat infrastructure and only replicated 2023/01/01 forward. It’s in the article.

[-] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago

Probably want to prevent people from deleting their own messages. Can't delete messages you don't have access to anymore.

[-] Taleya@aussie.zone 2 points 1 year ago

Can't have those pesky users deleting spez's retirement fund

[-] ultimate_question@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

100%. The idea that reddit would just permanently delete all those chat messages rather than just archive them away from the public is crazy. Even if they don't directly sell them to advertisers there's a shitload of value for private ML training

[-] JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago

Training on inaccessible private chat logs?

[-] ultimate_question@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

100%. The idea that reddit would just permanently delete all those chat messages rather than just archive them away from the public is crazy. Even if they don't directly sell them to advertisers there's a shitload of value for private ML training

this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2023
997 points (98.4% liked)

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