Earlier this summer “Backrooms”, a horror flick, became one of the most successful independent films ever made, grossing(总收入，票房收入) $393m from a $10m budget. Its source material(原始素材，资料来源) was unusual: a collection of images of unnervingly(令人不安地，使人紧张地) empty rooms that spread on Reddit, an internet forum. Hollywood producers have since taken to(开始习惯于，开始做) trawling(搜寻，搜索（大量信息）) the site for inspiration.
今年夏初，恐怖片《后室》成为有史以来最成功的独立电影之一，以1000万美元的预算收获了3.93亿美元的票房。其素材来源非同寻常：一组令人不安的空房间图片在Reddit（一个互联网论坛）上传播开来。此后，好莱坞制片人纷纷开始在该网站上搜寻灵感。
Reddit has had a difficult time of late(最近，近来). Its share price has dropped by about a third this year. Strong quarterly earnings last month failed to cheer shareholders, who fret(烦恼，焦虑) that the company will suffer as users turn to artificial-intelligence chatbots for information, rather than search engines such as Google that direct them to other sites. For now Reddit is attempting to cajole(哄骗，劝诱) chatbot-makers into paying more for its data, both through deals and lawsuits. But eventually it hopes bot-weary(厌倦机器人的) users will return to one of the internet’s last refuges(避难所，庇护所) of human-generated content.
Reddit最近处境艰难。其股价今年已下跌约三分之一。上个月强劲的季度盈利未能让股东们振奋，他们担心随着用户转向人工智能聊天机器人获取信息，而非谷歌等将用户引导至其他网站的搜索引擎，公司将会遭受损失。目前，Reddit正试图通过交易和诉讼，哄骗聊天机器人制造商为其数据支付更多费用。但最终，它希望厌倦了机器人的用户能回到这个互联网上最后的人类生成内容避难所之一。
Reddit’s business model lies somewhere between(介于……之间) Instagram (which profits off(从……获利) user-generated content) and Wikipedia (which relies on an army of volunteer moderators). That balance has sometimes been tricky(棘手的，难对付的) to manage. In 2023 the volunteers who moderate its “subreddits” went on a multi-day strike after the company said it would charge for access to its application programming interface, on which independent developers who build Reddit-based apps rely.(2023年，在Reddit宣布将对API访问收费后，管理子版块的志愿者举行了多天罢工，而独立开发者依赖该API构建应用。) The platform, which stuck with the policy, may have had larger clients in mind. Soon afterwards it struck deals(达成协议) with Google and OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, which reportedly agreed to pay $60m and $70m a year, respectively(分别地，各自地), to train their models on Reddit’s data.
Reddit的商业模式介于Instagram（靠用户生成内容获利）和维基百科（依赖庞大的志愿者版主队伍）之间。这种平衡有时难以把握。2023年，在Reddit宣布将对应用程序编程接口（API）的访问收费后，管理其“子版块”的志愿者举行了为期多天的罢工，而独立开发者正是依赖该API来构建基于Reddit的应用。坚持这一政策的Reddit可能心里有更大的客户。不久之后，它与谷歌和ChatGPT的制造商OpenAI达成了协议，据报道，这两家公司每年分别支付6000万美元和7000万美元，用Reddit的数据训练他们的模型。