It's actually one of the perks of centralized platforms like Reddit: if they want to, they have the technology and the resources to investigate bad actors like that. I don't just mean just finding and blocking their IPs, but untangling their ownership, corporate structure, tooling, and so on. Hiring actual PIs if necessary. It's the bread-and-butter for many spam and abuse teams at Big Tech.
That said, just because they can doesn't mean they will. It's possible that they've grown complacent and underfunded these capabilities (instead relying on community moderators to weed out bad actors). Or it's possible that they're too focused on the short term to see the existential risks. If I recall correctly, they couldn't resist the temptation of selling user content for LLM training, same as Stack Overflow.
But in an internet overrun by spam LLMs, the future are curated, walled-garden communities, and Reddit could be the basis for that.
Anything which diminishes their usage numbers won't look good for investors, so one should assume no action will be taken by the company which diminishes their usage numbers.
My strategy been to put my money where my mouth is and start paying for services that provide value to me (Kagi is one example - I’m a paying customer, and actually found this article using their small web site)
I tested it out and it works well for things like building heights, actors in movies, common facts, etc.
In my experience, the only area Brave Search lacks in is local results (a common issue with all non-Google search engines), but outside of that, I prefer it to Google, Bing, and DDG (still trying out Kagi)
Vlad does not appear to be aware of the first rule of holes: if you're in one, stop digging.
I'm a happy, paid Kagi subscriber and have been one for a long time, but I've been uneasy for a while about their lack of focus (the T-shirt fiasco being only the latest example) and the post demonstrates clearly that the issue is systemic.
You're trying to compete in search against Google and Microsoft with 12 people! Stop doing irrelevant bullshit that's no going to improve your bottom line!
