Reddit Founder Says Building Social Media Apps Is ‘Not Cool Anymore’

In an interview with WIRED senior correspondent Lauren Goode at the inaugural WIRED World Fair, Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian expressed his belief that creating social media applications is "not cool anymore". His perspective is shaped by his complicated relationship with the internet and his experiences with platforms like Reddit.

Ohanian resigned from Reddit in 2020 to pave the way for a Black board member and pressure the company to overhaul its content moderation policies. Once, a sign of Reddit's success, many users now cover their Reddit tattoos, which Ohanian finds disheartening. He now co-leads venture capital firm Seven Seven Six, focusing on sports and finding real-life communities "in the age of AI slop" and a "manipulated" internet.

A proponent of the "Dead Internet Theory" - the notion that much online activity is generated by bots, exacerbated by large language models - Ohanian is concerned about the future of the internet. As AI agents outpace human users, he predicts that "more of the internet is going to get created for these agents to use, [rather] than for people."

While platforms like Reddit have profited from licensing their archives to companies like Google and OpenAI, the technology has also undermined Reddit's business. Shares of the platform plummeted 29 percent last week after the site warned that Google's AI-powered search was damaging referral traffic.

Ohanian fears that the monetization of these conversations has led to "bullshit" on the platform. He believes the internet has become "so manipulated because it is so incredibly valuable to do so." To combat this, Reddit recently announced that users will need to sign in to prevent third-party scraping and maintain user engagement. However, Ohanian remains uncertain about the move.

Despite his reservations, Ohanian remains optimistic about the potential benefits of AI, particularly in the field of medicine. He believes there's still a chance that technology can cause harm, but he cannot ignore the potential for demonstrably better outcomes.