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Reddit announced this week that it will be restricting old Reddit functionality and killing its public API and RSS feeds in an effort to protect the site from AI scraping. This might be the death of the open internet. But we can take solace that it died doing what it loved, getting scraped. Internet's a little freaky that way. I'm Riley Murdoch. This is Techlink. And according to Reddit, the changes will come into effect in the coming months. RSS feeds will go down on November 13th and access to the public API will be shut down March 2027. Both of which will have an outsized impact on Reddit mods who use tools that rely on access to these data sources. The changes which are meant to protect the
site from abuse by AI are ironically going to make it way harder for mods to keep the site usable. Additionally, an argument could be made that none of these moves actually protect the site from the recent onslaught of AI posting that the mods have had to deal with. Users in r/mod news were openly hostile to the announcement and were quick to call out the hypocrisy of Reddit for making the experience of its human users and moderators worse while making AI deals with Google and OpenAI. Man, so much freaking irony in this story. Alanis Moriceette saw this coming years ago. She wrote a whole song about it.
It's like, it's like Reddit. The change that really stings for longtime Reddit users is that access to old Reddit will be limited to users who have logged in to the old version of the site in the preceding 6 months. So, new users will not be able to access it, and people who fall into comas will wake to a world that looks very different. I'm a doctor. I have bad news. Your community karma badge is completely gone. Open AAI's big Dev Day conference happened on Tuesday in San Francisco with more than 20 new exciting product announcements, meaning they the bed in a bunch of different ways. The big one was during the launch of Dots, OpenAI's
always on agent. The demo failed live on stage when the presenter requested some information from her dot which said it was working on it and then proceeded to never respond. Y'all like what happened there? You can do that too. If OpenAI ever does get the service working, dots are positioned as a competitor to Meta's recently announced Muse. And much like Muse, you give it access to every part of your digital life, and it acts as an always personal assistant that can theoretically do whatever you need it to. Also, like Muse, again, it comes with its own fuzzy avatar to distract you from the Cthulhuesque corporation that's plugging itself into every aspect of your life. We're not evil. Look, this
little guy is shaped like a heart. And that one has a beret. Now look into the orb and yield your digital soul to our computer god. For we are architecting a new garden of Eden. And in this new utopia, man's original sin is privacy. Dots are the cure. You are the HARVEST AND THE DOTS ARE THE THRESHER. AND THE HUNGER OF OUR GOD KNOWS NO BOUNDS. THEY ALSO LAUNCHED A NEW $500 a month pro plan with slightly increased usage and access to faster inference while cutting the $200 a month plan's usage in half. Seems like old scammy Altman might be getting desperate to turn a profit.
Hey, pro tip, dude. Don't inifify your service till after the IPO. This is basic. YouTube is cracking down on slop in shorts by reducing its discoverability and reach. Now, I don't know how YouTube found out about my short slop, but it was one chili dog a long time ago, and it's none of their damn business. In a creator insider video, YouTube's Renee Richie said they're targeting loweffort channels that steal and re-upload other people's videos, and they're tweaking the algorithm to prioritize original content. And no, adding on captions, making minor edits, or using a template filter does not qualify as original content. YouTube wants real commentary, analysis, and storytelling.
How am I supposed to watch all eight seasons of House MD in non-chronological order in vertical aspect ratio? Now, it's unclear if recording a voice over saying that's crazy or bro actually did that on footage of Archduke France Ferdinand's last car ride counts as original content. It was certainly original for the Arch Duke. He'd never done that before. Neither did Gabrielo Prince, the guy who assassinated him during World War One. Fun fact, Abdul's fun facts today. And considering the Archduke loved a good deal, I just wish he had a chance to visit our sponsor.
Jawa, I've just had a genius realization. Jawa is like the Jawas from Star Wars. But instead of hauling R5D4, C3PO, R2-D2, and our beloved R1G4 around in a sand crawler, Jawa is the number one gaming marketplace online for new and used gear and awesome custom PCs at amazing prices. How did I not see this? I mean, I'm seeing value listings like RTX 4070 builds on here. Jawa is even better than the Star Wars Jawas, too, because they vet their sellers, manually check listings, and protect transactions. The deals are so good they'll have you cheering like a or just shouting. Whether you're buying or selling PC parts, Jawa's got you covered. Like Han Solo covered Luke at the Battle of
Yavin. If you want to skip the hassle of researching, buying, and building a gaming PC for yourself, buy one from one of Jawa's verified sellers. Check them out at the link below. I hope they never end up like those poor Jawas in A New Hope. The one time stormtroopers hit something. The Quickbits are panicking at the disco. I repeat, they are literally chiming into these stories with a sense of poison rationality. Haven't you people ever heard of closing the goddamn door? No. It's much better to face these kinds of things. Bloomberg has just released a report on a smart glasses pilot project that's been running at Amazon for almost a year now.
The program has drivers wearing camera enabled glasses in the interest of aiding in deliveries with hands-free guidance from the van to your doorstep. Are they having trouble finding their way from the do from the van to the door? This obviously creates huge issues with privacy because the glasses snap photos every few seconds and the people whose homes are in those photos can't opt out of the Amazon panopticon. At least the original panopticon didn't make the prisoners pay a subscription fee. Yeah, they didn't get reacher either.
Worth it. So worth it. That man is a treasure. New York City's new click to cancel law just took effect, making it the first city in the US to require that cancelling a subscription be as easy as signing up for one. Under the new rule, businesses will have to clearly disclose subscription terms at sign up and cancellation, and users must be able to unsubscribe in the same medium that the signup occurred in. As in, if you signed up on the website, you should be able to unsubscribe on the website. Violations carry civil penalties starting at $525 each along with any refunds that are owed to the customer and city residents can file complaints through an online portal set up by the city. Man, New York
concrete jungle where dreams are made of fair terms and conditions. A Tokyo court has ruled that a person's voice can be legally protected after a landmark trial. Anime voice actor Kenjira Tsuda, known for voicing Naami from Jujutsu Kaizen, sued Tik Tok over an account that posted 180 plus videos about urban legends and paranormal phenomena using an AI clone of his voice. The judge ruled that a voice is as much a symbol of someone's personality as their face and that this was an infringement of publicity rights. Do we have those? They sound important. Tik Tok's defense was built on arguing that it was a generic male voice, which is the crulest thing you could say to a voice actor or the most complimentary.
They're going to get a lot of work that way. I still don't know what Troy Baker sounds like, but he's in everything. Troy Baker. What does he do? You don't know Troy Baker? Exactly. Micron says the RAM shortage will keep getting worse through 2028. So, it's time for RAM Apocalypse LinkedIn. Everyone's favorite segment, bundling the vomit inducing effects of the memory crisis into a lovely compressed hit of despair.
Samsung's doing their part, raising US Galaxy S26 prices by 100 bucks. And so is Nvidia Shield Pro, jumping up to $300, seven full years after it came out. And even 2 GB Raspberry Pies, fours, and fives are getting a bump in price. But Nvidia has a silver lining for local AI fans at least. Introducing a 64 GB DGX Spark variant you can get for a cool $5,000. You know, only a,000 bucks more than what the 128 GB version used to cost, the one with double the memory. So, I'm really sorry we had to tell you about all of that. And speaking of Nvidia, MicroEnter is reportedly making RTX5090
buyers show photo ID and sign a no export pledge before checkout. Buyers might be the wrong word to use since so far it just happened to one guy at a Tustin, California store. He had to fill out a form listing where the card would be installed and what he'd use it for. Then Pinky promised not to resell it or export it to foreign adversaries. You have to write down everything you're going to use it for. MicroEnter hasn't commented, but this could be part of a broader US crackdown on GPU smuggling to China. On the form under intended uses, customers can check these options: gaming, video editing, AI research, or heating my apartment located in Shenzhen.
Don't check that one. And I'll be cooling your apartment somehow if you don't come back Monday for more tech news. Until then, join the black parade because sugar, we're going down. It's a misery business and I'm Mr. Bright Side. Oh, Alex is on fire. Huh? It's a good thing Billy's talented. Would suck if he blinked 182 times and this turned into a green day. He did it all.
