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

Alexis Ohanian says building social media apps is no longer cool because much of the internet has been compromised. The Reddit co-founder points to automated computer programs creating content and shaping online spaces.

Ohanian supports the "Dead Internet Theory," which suggests that a large portion of online activity is generated by bots rather than humans. He believes large language models have sped up this trend because AI agents now run faster than human users. The internet he grew up on was built for people first, but he expects traditional user screens and menus to fade as more of the network gets built for AI agents to use instead.

Generative AI has helped sites like Reddit make money by licensing archives of human conversation to train models, but the technology has also hurt the business. Reddit shares dropped 29 percent after the company warned that Google’s AI-powered search was cutting down the traffic coming from search engines. Ohanian also worries that making money from these conversations has filled them with unreliable material because manipulating the internet has become very profitable.

To find real-life communities away from AI-generated noise and a manipulated internet, Ohanian now directs his venture capital firm toward sports. He expects an improved version of the group chat to replace traditional user-generated content. Even though he worries that AI can cause real harm, he remains hopeful about its potential to bring medical breakthroughs.

Summary

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian explains how the growth of artificial intelligence and automated bots has compromised the internet and shifted his focus away from traditional social media apps toward real-world communities and sports.