Reddit is going to be leaning even harder into search in the coming months. The company has already been working on a plan to integrate its LLM-powered search into its main search feature, but CEO Steve Huffman said he wants users to think of the site as an actual search engine.
During the company’s latest earnings call, Huffman said search is one of the top priorities for Reddit. “We’re concentrating our resources on the areas that will drive results for our most pressing needs, improving the core product, making Reddit a go-to search engine, and expanding internationally.”
The idea of reddit as a search engine isn’t that far-fetched. Many people are already in the habit of adding “Reddit” to traditional searches in the hopes of finding relevant threads from the site. And the company has been trying to take advantage of this with its own AI-powered search product Reddit Answers. Though that feature is still labeled as being in “beta,” the company plans to eventually add it to its default search bar.
“Everyone in the world should use Reddit” according to the current boss of Reddit.
I tried to use Reddit answers multiple times to see how it works, so far for me at least, it hasn’t worked at all and it’s always spat network timeouts or some bs like that.
You mean the website where the search functionality is so bad, for so many years that you need an external search engine to find anything? That website? And they want to be seen as a search engine?
I guess they are taking the ‘search’ to mean ‘searching, and searching, and searching…’ and not a whole lot of finding.
No thanks
The shitty website famous for its shitty search function that tries to not let you use a VPN?
The bots and commercialization are in opposition to this goal. People add reddit to a search because they want to hear what real, normal people write about things. When you start to commercialize that, that ruins the whole point.
When all your users are bots, it stops mattering.
The sad part is Reddit was the epitome of socialist experiment. A by the people for the people internet hub, it had its downsides for sure but most people participated for the joy of being a part of this giant thing, no money was involved. Now it has been perverted into the perfect capitalist AI machine, using all our volunteered input for greedy selfish profiteering ends. What a U turn.
The sad part is Reddit was the epitome of socialist experiment… Now it has been perverted into the perfect capitalist AI machine
Yeah that’s why the state suicided the founder.
I remember what they called a “search function”. Yes, you could search something, but nobody thought about the “finding” part.
I entered the title of a post and limited the search to the sub it was in, and it f-ing didn’t find it.
“We want to be Xhitter, Google, and Facebook, so we’re going to do 25% of each of those things and hope the oligarchy saves us.” Sure bro, solid business plan.
Dollar-store Zuck at it again…
You mean the website that’s mostly blocked unless you sign in? lmao
Fuck Steve Huffman
If only it wasn’t censored like mad.
Reddit search was always terrible, the best way to find a post was to open a browser and do a search, I’m sure a LLM will make it better.
Many people are already in the habit of adding “Reddit” to traditional searches in the hopes of finding relevant threads from the site
Mmmm, nah, no thanks.
And by no thanks I really mean KMA. That sounds dumb and greedy. Maybe focus on better things— like not banning people for updoots. 🤷♀️
