On "Reddit CEO Says Google’s AI Mode ‘Does Not Drive Traffic’"

Reddit's claiming Google's AI features killed their referral traffic, but that's a convenient scapegoat for a site that's been actively hostile to search bots and actively monetizing API access—they broke their own search visibility. The real issue isn't that AI Overviews are inherently traffic-hostile; it's that Reddit never invested in SEO as a core product strategy, which means when Google's priorities shifted, they had no resilience. Their login wall test and API crackdown show they're betting on direct traffic and platform stickiness instead of search discovery, which is a legitimate business choice—but blaming Google's AI for the consequences is misdirection. For practitioners, this is a cautionary tale: if your traffic model depends entirely on Google's algorithm favoring you, you're already losing.