Reddit just had a blockbuster quarter. Revenue rose 61% to $805 million. Profit more than doubled. Daily users climbed 18%. Then the stock fell more than 20%. The numbers were not the problem. Google was.

Investors looked past the beat and fixed on one line from CEO Steve Huffman: search referrals had been “choppy.” Reddit’s content sits near the top of countless Google results, so a large share of its visitors arrive through search. If that pipe narrows, the growth story wobbles, however good the quarter looks.

Huffman used the moment to go on the offensive. In a letter to shareholders, he cast Reddit as the antidote to a web drowning in machine-made text. “As the internet becomes flooded with synthetic content, people are craving real human perspective,” he wrote. His sharpest line: “People don’t want a summary of Reddit; they want Reddit.”

On the earnings call, he told Engadget’s readers and investors what he thinks of AI Overviews, Google’s feature that answers queries at the top of the page. The old “10 blue links” drove real value, he said. “From where we sit, AI Overviews has yet to make a similar level of positive impact… we’re still looking for that win-win.”

The $60m question

The friction is awkward, because Google pays Reddit for the privilege. A 2024 licensing deal, reportedly worth about $60 million a year, lets Google train on and surface Reddit content. Reddit struck a similar deal with OpenAI. Now Huffman is openly questioning whether the Google arrangement still serves him.

Asked directly if Reddit might end it, he did not say no. “The range of outcomes is wide,” he said, adding that the company had to maximise value to Reddit. That echoes a July report from the Wall Street Journal, which said Reddit had discussed cutting off Google’s access to its content for AI use.

Reddit is not alone in weighing the same move. The Journal named The Economist, Reuters, Politico and USA Today among publishers rethinking their Google relationships. The bind is that being a blue link and being fed into AI Overviews come as a package. Only recently, and only in the UK, have regulators forced Google to let publishers opt out of one without losing the other.

Google’s counter

Google rejects the premise. In a blog post, search chief Liz Reid said total organic click volume to websites has stayed “relatively stable year-over-year,” and dismissed third-party studies as flawed. The trouble is the studies point the other way. A 2025 Pew analysis found AI Overviews roughly halved click-throughs to outside sites.

The two sides cannot agree on the basic facts, which is the real story. Publishers see referrals falling; Google sees them holding. What is not in dispute is the nervousness. When even a search goldmine like Reddit starts eyeing the exit, and hedging with a “video Reddit” and spoken posts, the web’s referral economy is being repriced in real time.

For now, Reddit’s data is coveted by every AI company, and its numbers are strong. The question the 20% drop asked is a harder one. It is whether strong numbers are enough when the front door to the open web, search itself, is quietly narrowing. Even Cloudflare is now trying to make the crawlers pay.

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