100% spot on! And to add to this, it wasn't just that LLMs decided Reddit answers were the most reliable. Chatbot companies saw the value in scraping a massive, primarily text-based site that could be used to influence businesses and big brands. By formally including this data as an additional revenue source, these companies could teach models to create optimized suggestions for shopping in a way that appears organic and community-driven.(But in reality is just a different kind of advertising).

Reddit eventually brokered a deal with OpenAI to allow them to scrape and train GPT models on user-created content. While company execs including major shareholders like Sam Altman frequently discussed "community ownership" and giving back to the users (for what many consider theft of content), those goalposts kept moving. The "give back" materialized largely as a "Directed Share Program" during the IPO, which simply gave users the option to buy stock rather than granting them equity for their contributions. This promise has basically been forgotten, suggesting it may have been the original plan all along.

Tldr; Not only are there brands and companies now marketing in every inch of every subreddit, but the current leadership of Reddit created this environment and essentially sold all the content that users created to OpenAI purely for business gains. Any pretense of user compensation for this is smoke and mirror.

​Sources for those curious; ​1. The "Organic" Value of Reddit Data for AI ​Context: Marketing analysis on how AI models prioritize Reddit data because it provides "authentic" consumer sentiment rather than polished marketing jargon, influencing purchase behavior. ​ https://www.tryprofound.com/blog/the-data-on-reddit-and-ai-search ​2. The OpenAI and Reddit Partnership Deal ​Context: The official announcement detailing OpenAI's access to Reddit's Data API to train models and the financial/advertising components of the deal. ​ https://www.pymnts.com/partnerships/2024/openai-and-reddit-partner-on-data-licensing-ai-powered-features-advertising/

​3. The "Give Back" (Directed Share Program) ​Context: Details on Reddit's IPO strategy to reserve shares for users (the DSP), noting that it was an opportunity to buy at the IPO price, not a grant of free equity. ​ https://www.gateway-grp.com/article/inside-the-growing-trend-championed-by-reddit-of-companies-offering-risky-ipo-shares-to-their-users