“Reddit is getting smoked this morning (10/1) amid elevated trading activity, deepening a rout that has seen shares sink 15% in the trailing eight sessions heading into today.
The consternation appears to be driven by reports on social media that suggest ChatGPT is using Reddit content as a source much less often.”
Read the full article at: Reddit sinks on heavy volumes, social media chatter of reduced referral traffic from ChatGPT - Sherwood News
I am missing why this is an issue. I haven’t heard any news that there was income from ChatGPT using the data, exactly the opposite in that they were basically just stealing (using for free) the data.
What benefit did Reddit receive from this one way relationship?
Below is from Perplexity.AI
Reddit (RDDT) has rapidly grown its revenue from licensing data for use in training AI models, with the most recent filings and industry reports indicating that data licensing generated $35 million in Q2 2025 alone—a 24% year-over-year increase. For the trailing year, the total value of Reddit’s AI data licensing deals (not just realized revenue, but total contract value) stands at approximately $203 million, with landmark agreements with Google and OpenAI forming the core of this revenue stream. These contracts are generally structured over two to three years and began with an annual $60 million deal with Google, but Reddit is now negotiating usage-based and dynamic terms that could further increase revenue as its data becomes more embedded in AI workflows.
I don’t really know, I just posted the article. I guess it’s a case of perception equals reality. If people perceive that Reddit has lost an income stream, that’s a bad thing, hence the stock price takes a hit. If indeed it’s just a matter of misperception, then now’s a great buying opportunity. But, as I said at the outset - I don’t really know.
Oh wow, that is info I did not have. Thanks!
I am no longer a user of RDDT, after discovering bias of active membership was constraining, supporting and shaping the flow of information on the site. This is not a significant issue when the response is totally data driven, but investing decisions combine data and opinion. My primary use of AI is the pursuit of sound investing decisions, and I would suggest an AI source moving away from RDDT as an information source is a positive reflection on their business plan.
Gray
I think some comments here misunderstood the data points. The drop of referral from ChatGPT is an issue with DAU / user engagement growth, rather than an issue with data licensing.
Referral means that, in AI answers, people clicking links to Reddit. On the other hand, data is licensed to be used to train LLMs, regardless whether the link is shown in the answers.
According to this post (https://x.com/AIStockSavvy/status/1973390997670207566), the drop might actually be due to a Google indexing change. Basically Google changed the page size of search results from 100 to 10, which essentially reduced 90% of the links of Reddit shown in AI results, unless the chatbot companies sends 10 times more requests to Google to close the gap.
Nevertheless, I don’t think the drop from ChatGPT has any big impact on Reddit’s DAU. Based on some free (August) data I found on SimilarWeb, although ChatGPT was 1/3 of Reddit’s referral traffic, referral traffic as a whole was only 1.39% of the Reddit’s total traffic.
Luffy
