Closing The Loop
We talk about Reddit, Google and our desi GPS.
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The Great Reddit Lockdown
Reddit, the much-loved website, is often called “the front page of the internet”. In the words of its CEO, Steve Huffman, it holds “20 years of conversation about everything”. That’s two decades of people giving advice, arguing with strangers, telling stories, joking, venting and confessing. And who would want to get their hands on all that? AI companies, of course!
Reddit has the kind of content in abundance that large language models (LLMs) use to become more ‘intelligent’ and “human”. That’s why Reddit struck a $60 million-a-year deal with Google two years ago that gave Google access to train AI models on Reddit’s vast content.* It also has a similar agreement with OpenAI.*
Naturally, many Redditors weren’t happy as they saw that content as theirs, not Reddit’s. But that’s the trade-off for using something that is “free”. As the old internet adage goes: if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product!
While Reddit is happy to license its content to paying customers, with commercial agreements that come with guardrails, it is keen to shut its gates to unauthorized access (basically the scraping and stealing of Reddit’s data) which happens primarily through logged-out experiences.
Recently, CEO Huffman announced a major change to Reddit. The platform is moving towards becoming a primarily logged-in experience. One reason for this is to clamp down on unauthorised access to its content.*
In our story “Upvoted by Humanity“, we told you why the internet is trying to stay human, and why companies like Reddit are fighting against the very technology they are helping build and profiting from.
Huffman also argues that users will get the best version of Reddit when they sign in, because personalisation is possible only when the platform knows who they are and what they’re interested in.* While that may certainly improve your experience when you’re on Reddit, it could make things worse when you’re outside the platform. For example, Reddit links appearing in Google search results will increasingly lead to a signup wall.
Huffman also says the decision will benefit Reddit’s business:
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It will make it easier to adapt to emerging regulations around the world, and of course, more users being logged in allows us to deliver more relevant ads. A non-targeted ad is just a waste of space for everybody.*
Speaking of ads, Reddit has also announced that it is exploring new ways to make money from its users. On November 3, it announced that it had begun testing ad placements in its search results pages. So, if you search for something like “office setup”, you could start seeing advertisements for monitors, desks and office chairs.*
Reddit has grown and thrived, in part, because users were able to lurk around and join in the conversations for free. But that business model comes with hidden costs that many may not appreciate. In our story “The Original Sin is Evolving“, we talked about how advertising became the internet’s default business model and why it may not be the best arrangement for you.
While Reddit has struck a deal with Google, it is also increasingly threatened by it…
Killing the Golden Goose-gle
Following Huffman’s recent announcements, Reddit’s shares fell 18%. What was the trigger? Search engine referrals to Reddit had decreased by more than 1 million on average each week during October. In the United States, its daily active unique users fell 2%, marking their first decline since Reddit went public in 2024.* If the trend continues, Huffman has warned that total daily active unique visitors could fall by a low double-digit percentage in the fourth quarter.
Why is this happening? AI-powered answers to search queries are making users less likely to scroll down and click through to websites. Huffman put it bluntly:
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Google is crawling us as hard as ever, so the demand hasn’t changed from their point of view either. The reality is, the AI mode does not drive traffic, not for us and not to anybody.*
Less traffic to websites essentially translates into lower revenue for companies like Reddit, which thrive on advertising money. Interestingly, Reddit isn’t the only one feeling the heat. Google itself is getting cannibalized!
On October 29, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, saw its shares plunge nearly 15%, wiping out around $500 billion in market value in a single day! This followed disappointing third-quarter sales, with advertising revenue from search and other channels falling short of analyst expectations. Investors were also concerned about the company’s massive spending on AI infrastructure.*
This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Last year, in “Google’s Search for Itself“, we talked about how a fundamental shift in the way we search online could affect Google.
For years, the way we’ve Googled has remained largely the same. We search for something, scroll through a list of links, pick one that looks promising, and hope it has what we’re looking for. But the process is rather roundabout. After all, we’re searching for answers, not links that might lead us to them!
Google understood this quite well when it launched AI Overviews. Now, when you search for something like “Amitabh Bachchan height“, Google gives you the answer right there. It also serves up snippets with the heights of other stars, a follow-up section (with questions like “Is Abhishek Bachchan taller than his father?“), and a knowledge panel containing his biodata, top movies and official social handles. All this information appears in the premium real estate at the top of the screen, known as “above the fold“. Chances are, CelebHeights.com won’t get a visit from you.
This is what’s called a “zero-click search“. And according to analysts, around 70% of Google searches in the US ended without a click during the first four months of 2026.* Even when users do click, a chunk of that traffic goes to Google’s own properties, such as YouTube and Google Maps.
That may be frustrating for website owners, whose traffic (and revenue) takes a hit, but searchers aren’t complaining. It’s fast, frictionless, and often gives them exactly what they need!
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But this shift creates a problem for Google’s own business. You see, at its core, Google is an advertising company. A massive ~75% of Google’s $400 billion revenue last year came from advertising,* and a big chunk of that from the sponsored links and ad placements you see on the search results page. But in a world where it gives you direct answers instead of links, that ad real estate disappears!
As one investor put it:
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This quarter feels like a moment of truth for Alphabet. Either Pichai and his team fix the way the company monetizes AI, or the giant risks losing its leadership in several of its core businesses in the near future. Until Google shows it can charge for AI the way it once charged for search ads, every capital spending forecast it issues is going to read less like ambition and more like a bill.*
Lost in Time
You might be familiar with NavIC, short for Navigation with Indian Constellation. It’s our very own desi alternative to GPS.
GPS and similar navigation systems work by having satellites in space beam down signals containing two pieces of information: “I’m here“ and “The time is this“. Your phone picks up these signals and does some quick math. The “I’m here” message gives it a reference of position. Next, your phone subtracts the time in the message from the time on its own clock to figure out how long the signal took to arrive. Then it multiplies that by the speed of light (because GPS signals travel at light speed) to determine its distance from the satellite.
GPS satellites don’t use ordinary clocks like the one on your wrist. They use atomic clocks so precise that they’re accurate to within a billionth of a second! Why? Because even a 1-millisecond error could throw off your location by 300 km, which is not helpful when trying to find a coffee shop.
In theory, three satellites are enough to pinpoint your location using the process of trilateration (often mistakenly called triangulation). But in reality, since your phone’s clock isn’t as precise as an atomic clock, a fourth satellite is needed to correct timing errors. And to ensure that you can view at least four satellites from virtually any point on the planet, GPS relies on a constellation of 24+ satellites orbiting Earth.
NavIC is designed to work with 7 satellites. They orbit such that at least 4 of them are always visible from anywhere in India (the bare minimum needed for accurate positioning).
In March this year, India’s NavIC navigation system stopped providing navigation services. This happened after one of its remaining operational navigation satellites, IRNSS-1F, lost its last functioning atomic clock, just days after completing its designed mission life of 10 years.* Today, there are only 3 active satellites in the NavIC constellation, below the minimum requirement of 4 satellites.
So, what went wrong? On most of the satellites, all of their atomic clocks failed, which means they can’t provide precise positioning anymore.
The good news is that, after some delay, ISRO is working to restore the constellation. Two weeks ago, it successfully launched NVS-03, the third satellite in its next-generation navigation satellite. Importantly, NVS-03 comes equipped with an indigenously developed atomic clock alongside imported ones. Fingers crossed that this homegrown fix holds up better!
Why did India decide to build NavIC when GPS is readily available for free around the world? How does it work? And why has it struggled to live up to its potential? We explained it all in “Our Desi GPS Is Losing Its Way“.
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Curious? Read or listen to the updates of the week on Reddit, Google, and NavIC, our own desi alternative to GPS, on Dot.
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