this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2026
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When you post on reddit, instagram etc. you're giving the company your valuable data. (And it often is valuable, you put your thoughts into it and all that). Consider if you take 15 minutes to create value content, you'd get paid $5 or sth if you were doing it commercially. Now all that value is donated to big tech companies. (that's the only reason why they have value at all.)

So what's the problem with that? The problem is that reddit and others can instantaneously put your years-long effort behind a paywall. I'm not joking. Look at these:

when i want to see content on reddit (for research) or instagram (for local community) they don't allow me to see the data that users have contributed. Reddit claims that it blocks VPNs for "security reasons", meanwhile i'm using VPNs in browser's incognito mode to not be tracked. Instagram wants you to sign in sothat they amass more users and can take leverage of the network effect even more.

I can understand restricting who can post to limit bot activity, but reading must always be possible. After all, it's our data. That's exactly what happens when you give your data to big companies to "communicate with other people": your data becomes a source of income for them, at our expense.

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[–] makeshift0546@lemmy.today 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Yeah, I'm sure this post won't ever get scanned.

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[–] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 6 points 4 weeks ago

Reddit is trying to pull its value from content as an AI source, because they can't monetize users more directly.

[–] leanleft@lemmy.ml 6 points 4 weeks ago

great post. im glad it has so many upvotes.
additionally:
i think it ties back to many issues:

  • privacy
  • stance and dividend of LLMs
  • online culture. digital communities
  • citizen rights
  • and lots more!
[–] TootSweet@lemmy.world 6 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Don't Contribute Anything Relevant in Web Forums Like Reddit

(Emphasas mine.)

So shitposts are fine?

I've been training my whole life for this.

[–] Blackdoomax@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 weeks ago

Yeah. I only post sarcasms without the /s until I get banned from all the subs.

[–] EliteCloneMike@lemmy.zip 4 points 4 weeks ago

I use Lemmy (obviously as I’m posting here) and Cat’s Arch Redlib (https://catsarch.com/) to view Reddit. I sometimes post on the r/poisionai subreddit, as I am disgusted with how AI has been used in general, but that’s a different topic. Also, if you’re using Chrome incognito, you can still be tracked, even with a VPN on and without signing in to your account. Might want to switch browsers to reduce your digital fingerprint. Just a suggestion. Assume anything Google is tracking you at some level for behavioral or personalized advertising. Again, that’s a different topic, but thought it was worth adding.

[–] FistingEnthusiast@lemmy.world 4 points 4 weeks ago (9 children)

I just post my unhinged performance art

People on lemmy don't seem to enjoy it for some reason

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[–] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago

Open up junk data subreddits

[–] magnolia_mayhem@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

We need distributed webscrapers going on refit 24/7. Distributed because they shouldn't be allowed to tell whether or not a request is a user or a scraper

[–] Deebster@infosec.pub 5 points 4 weeks ago

Lots of both legal and illegal devices in people's homes surreptitiously use their connection to do that already. E.g. Bright Data sells proxy access with 400M+ residental IPs via its SDK embedded in lots of smart TVs. AI scrapers love this one weird trick!

[–] Themosthighstrange@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago

what about the subreddit posionai, they are doing the lords work out there

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