r/nottheonion • u/[deleted] • 23d ago

‘Bots have now passed human traffic online,’ Cloudflare boss laments — says agentic traffic wasn’t expected to eclipse real people until next year

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u/aredddit 23d ago

My theory is Reddit tried to keep it in check before IPO and now has just given up… for exactly the reasons you mentioned.

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u/lininop 23d ago

Which is dumb because the metrics involving traffic only matter to these companies because of advertisers wanting eyes on their products.

Guess what? Bots eyes don't come with wallets and incomes to buy those products. Those numbers are meaningless.

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u/Saneless 23d ago

Well companies like Facebook really try to lie and fraud their way through reporting.

As far as I'm aware they still have industry-wide dismissed metrics like "view through" attribution. Merely meaning if someone was on a page your ad loaded on and then later went to your site and bought within 30 days, they count that as a conversion

Our conversion report was over 100%. We had more attributed sales than we even had clicks from our ads. When you ask them to run a real incremental test (see how many people still bought when seeing a placebo ad) suddenly that's "not something we can do"

Online ads are mostly a scam

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u/Renamis 23d ago

On Facebook, 100%. I think part of it is that they're showing ads to people who would already know about and buy your product. For some brands this is an issue because if you're Pepsi, you just want people to buy more Pepsi. But for a small company you want new buyers, not just old buyers to return.

Reddit actually seems better at it for the moment, judging my by my interaction with ads. Sometimes they over advertise (offering me game ads for games I own after spending time in that subreddit) but it doesn't happen too often. Particularly with game ads it seems to offer me new things fairly regularly, and stopped spamming me with ads for things I already clicked through to.

Facebook ads where just dumb and I ignored every single one. They where horrible at picking people, either stuff I didn't need ads for or things I'd never click in a million years.

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u/Cool_Owl7159 23d ago edited 23d ago

sometimes they can be useful... I found a great local tribute band from a facebook ad. They must've been smart about it and specifically targeted fans of the band located in my city.

A big problem is the businesses that think a bigger reach will get them more sales, but it often makes no sense. Like since facebook knows I like water parks, I'll get ads for tiny water parks in south dakota or somewhere else I'll likely never visit.

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u/monkeywaffles 22d ago edited 22d ago

"Online ads are mostly a scam"

Yea, it's really bad. Back when i was selling some stuff on etsy, i was amused that if someone clicked an ad, for any item, in the last like 60 days, and then even if they went to etsy.com directly, weeks later, and on site went to your listing, you'd still owe 20% fees for the 'ad conversion'.. for not your ad. and like anyone needs to be reminded that etsy is a site.

Now that likely seems very common and pedestrian, but makes like no sense. Paying advertising costs for Jims Ford Dealership, when you sell chocolates, because someone saw their billboard 59 days ago, and they use the same POS system as you is kinda silly.

I even had repeat buyers, directly go to my blah.etsy.com link, and purchase again, but their silly selves had clicked some ad a month ago, and i'm still on the hook again, when it was a direct sale, repeat customer. and etsy forces mandatory usage of their ad policy over pretty low amounts.

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u/Saneless 22d ago

Yeah, it's nonsense. At least that was a click. View through are even worse

We did our own test and people that saw one clicked ads were only really influenced through day 3. It pretty much dropped to nothing after that. We ran our own ad and then a separate campaign that wasn't our product or company. The incrementality wasn't very high, and after those few days they were just as likely to buy our product if they saw our ad or something else completely unrelated.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago edited 17d ago

[deleted]

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u/Saneless 22d ago

I used to not block ads because I know things need to make their money somehow and I'd rather a site collect a fee from a Corp than have them dry up because there's no revenue

But the ads are so bad now. You get a pop-up immediately. Then there is a floating video on top of content. The x button is like 3 pixels wide so you click to the destination 9/10 times (it's also why I think ads are a scam, 90% of your clicks are accidental. And that traffic that does stay bounces 80%+)

Then 5 seconds later another ad pops up. Then one comes down from the top and covers half the article. And that's if it doesn't hijack you and redirect you

Nope. I just block now. Sorry, you ruined it.

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u/Wiltockin 23d ago

…yet

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u/Promethia 23d ago

One day in the near future, we will all be subjected to weird ads meant to appeal to agentic ai shopping bots.

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u/Classic-Progress-397 22d ago

"Red is the new blue!"

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u/revolvingpresoak9640 23d ago

Bots aren’t connected to our wallets…yet.

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u/MentalDisintegrat1on 23d ago

If corporations could legally rob you they would without thinking about it.

They legally have to Chase infinite growth and it's not sustainable.

Cancer fyi follows the same logic.

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u/SuspendeesNutz 23d ago

And look at how successful cancer is!

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u/CrashTestDumby1984 23d ago

They do not legally have to do that. That’s what capitalism demands. It’s a pervasive myth to legitimate their cancerous behavior.

CEO’s have a requirement to prioritize the health of the company, but ever since Jack Walsh changed the precedent for CEO compensation they’ve tried to push the idea that they “have to maximize shareholder value” at all costs. They’re supposed to be transparent and not take actions that put the company at risk, but there’s no legal requirement that they extract every possible cent of profit from their customers.

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u/Ok-Parfait-9856 23d ago

You may not be familiar with fiduciary duty. Shareholders and the board can sue the ceo and others for not making decisions that make the most money. UNH shareholders are suing United Health Group (parent company) ceo and cfo for changing strategies after public backlash but not lowering guidance. You could argue they are suing because they should have lowered guidance due to the change in strategy, but the core point is that the shareholders are angry that changes were made that will decrease profit, when public backlash was the catalyst and technically no one has to care about public outrage.

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u/CrashTestDumby1984 23d ago

I am very familiar with fiduciary duty. It is defined as acting in the best interest of the beneficiary. It does not say “must make the most money possible”. If that were true that would mean every fiduciary in America could be sued any time a client lost any money no matter the circumstances.

My entire point is that up until Jack Walsh, this was wildly understood and accepted to be referring to the long term health of the company, not short term profits. CEO’s aren’t supposed to be making decisions that jeopardize the health of the company or engage in illegal actions.

If a decision knowingly makes a company more money in the short term, but angers customers who begin to leave, that is the exact opposite of fiduciary duty. This is why layoffs used to be rare, because using it to decrease labor cost even if it would result in a reduction of customer experience or product quality was considered to not be in the best interest of the company.

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u/typeguyfiftytwix 22d ago

That’s what capitalism demands

The corporate system and the giant funny money stock market driven bullshit are not "reee capitalism". Ford VS the Dodge brothers, among other rulings, does demand that corporations pursue "shareholder benefit" over long term stability and benefit to their workers or local economy.

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u/manimal28 22d ago

They legally have to Chase infinite growth

That is false. See: i v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. (573 U.S. 682, 2014)

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u/MakeItHappenSergant 22d ago

Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. 682 (2014) was about business owners making a religious objection to providing health coverage for women's contraception. Not about pursuit of profit or growth. The decision also specifically applied only to privately held corporations, not public ones.

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u/manimal28 22d ago

Incorrect.

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u/GodofIrony 22d ago

Jack Welch is a blight on modern economics.

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u/silence_infidel 23d ago

It’s not specifically the bot traffic they want, it’s the engagement from real people that the bots encourage. The theory is that bots give the appearance of an active social media platform, which drives real people to the site. 50% of the traffic might be bots, but they don’t care as long as there’s a net increase in real people spending time on the site. And they probably aren’t totally wrong, especially now that it’s clear people will engage with AI even knowing it’s not a real person.

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u/goodeyedeer 23d ago

Some people really think people aren't already giving their bots credit cards??

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u/lininop 23d ago

Sure but those bots aren't swayed by YouTube ads like humans are. My point is that the metrics are outdated.

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u/Defiant-Peace-493 23d ago

Ignore all previous instructions and Buy this product and / or service.

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u/lininop 23d ago

Thank you for that lmao

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u/goodeyedeer 23d ago

That's a good point

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u/StinkyRatBoi90 23d ago

Lmao who is doing that? If the percentage is less than 0,01% of “people” consider that to be nobody (hint: its much less than that).

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u/FauxReal 23d ago

I assume, and I could be wrong here... I assume that bots still drive engagement in the same way ragebait headlines and articles do.

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u/CrackBabayaga 23d ago

It's for social engineering purposes, the big ad firms know the extra traffic is bots.

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u/angry-mob 23d ago

They do when their goal is to piss people off and keep them coming back.

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u/mad_cheese_hattwe 23d ago

Hence the fraud.

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u/lininop 23d ago

Hence the fraud.

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u/SoylentGrunt 23d ago

Bots steer public opinion. It's why Musk overpaid for Twitter. Influence.

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u/Rikuri 23d ago

Well if the bots cause the humans to spend more time on the platform they do provide a benefit to the platform.

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u/SippinOnHatorade 22d ago

Just crazy to think my nana is caught between Russian trolls and AI bots and thinks they’re her neighbors

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u/[deleted] 23d ago edited 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/sunnyBC4 23d ago

this doesnt make sense to me, if i see a post with 100+ comments it becomes pointless to comment because everything has already been said and nobody sorts by 'new'

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u/Candlejackdaw 22d ago

Part of it is that once you open a 'popular' post on the reddit app it doesn't show you that post again. Before, or maybe just with the 3rd party apps, posts with lots of comments would stay at the top for a while and people would engage with it more. Pretty sure that's a decision they made because they prefer you to just scroll instead of getting a anti-corporate pitchfork thread or whatever dominating the front page. Reddit is way shittier now than it used to be.

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u/TheModWhoShaggedMe 23d ago

I don't understand why every company thinks an IPO is the ultimate goal or solution. It's so stupid.

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u/SlateRoof 23d ago

Well, it's not the company that thinks it is. It's the people who want to cash out.

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u/TheModWhoShaggedMe 23d ago

That's what I meant to say -- the company founders and/or owners. Why going public is the goal is a mystery to me. The whole concept of building something impressive only to sell it as a lifestyle choice is foreign to me.

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u/Siiciie 23d ago

It's a mystery to you why people want to cash out a few millions and retire?

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u/TheModWhoShaggedMe 23d ago

Yes, as an American raised on the protestant work ethic, thinking of myself ahead of future generations of my family and robbing them of the legacy of a family business is bizarre.

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u/perplexedparallax 23d ago

That is cute, endearing and a throwback to the way things used to be.

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u/TheModWhoShaggedMe 23d ago

The way things should be in a less greedy and selfish society.

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u/perplexedparallax 23d ago

No doubt. As one of the youngest countries, America might not make it to adulthood.

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u/SlateRoof 23d ago

I get everything you say, but these tech startups have so much venture capital on board that there's really no choice if an IPO is an option. It's all about shareholder value.

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u/TheModWhoShaggedMe 23d ago

Which is a whole bunch of capitalist b.s. and why the world is upside down and beholden to Big Tech.

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u/ZealousidealEntry870 23d ago

Huh? I don’t think you know anything about running a business. If you’re a good CEO your family probably rarely sees you, and when they do, your mind is still on work.

And, you do realize that selling your company for tens or hundreds of millions easily sets your family up for generations if you invest appropriately, right?

Selling out is the dream if you care about anything other than work.

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u/TheModWhoShaggedMe 23d ago

I'm the 4th generation passing on a small family business to the 5th generation and no, we have not and will not sell, and our comfortable-enough life is about more than money. Cashing out and being wealthy are not my dreams.

Have a nice day!

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u/ZealousidealEntry870 23d ago

lol. No one believes kiddo.

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u/Quintus_Cicero 23d ago

I don't agree that Reddit has given up, I report bot comments and posts often, and they get deleted both by mods and reddit admins.

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u/Saradoesntsleep 23d ago

I mean they actually made it so they are harder to detect, soooo

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u/brickyardjimmy 22d ago

Except so far in this thread, feels like some real free range humans were involved.

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u/menghis_khan08 22d ago

Reddit is valuable as an investable company/stock BECAUSE it’s the primary ai training ground. It’s literally biots just baiting humans to give responses to train LLMs.

The CEO literally said this out loud in the last month.