I don't understand why they lobotomized their product. Presumably they would make a lot more money by having satisfied customers. What did they stand to gain from the rug-pull here? I could understand if they jacked up their prices to exploitative levels, but that's not what they did.
There is a history of sex work attracting disproportionate, sudden, catastrophic legal responses. It carries a considerable amount of political and reputational risk.
Now, you might reasonably argue that AI chat isn't actually sex work, or that since no actual women are involved in it the usual "anti trafficking" arguments don't hold. But the real question is: what happens when there's a moral panic, and someone digs up the most explicit, weirdest bits of Replika chats and reads them out in a congressional inquiry?
Bingo. Someone's 11-year-old, who has already learned most of the sex stuff on the schoolyard, will lie their way into account creation (as an "adult"), enable super explicit sexy mode, prime it with as much dirty stuff as they can imagine, and then screenshot 2 or 3 messages from the "AI" to them and send to friends for the lulz. Parents find it - call local TV station or make it go viral online with the narrative that sweet little <insert name> was innocently browsing excellent child-friendly content, probably PBS, and somehow was targeted by this perverted AI Bot which filled their brain with filthy thoughts, scarring them for life. 'They'll need at least $20 million dollars worth of therapy over their lifetime.'
Like with Tumblr, it probably has to do with age blocking or the lack of it. "Your AI solicited nudes from children!" is pretty large reputational damage, if someone could find even one example and present that.
I am 100% sure they received a warning from Apple. Although it seems that they have a web version, their revenue from Appstore should be more than 50% and up to 75% given their demographics and current market state.
Still don't get it. You would think that they could make a heartfelt, transparent blog post and make a path for existing customers to continue their service off of Apple (e.g. web based), possibly at a marginally increased fee given that it will cost the company extra to service them.
As a company founder I'm just horrified to read these sorts of stories.
> continue their service off of Apple (e.g. web based)
Maybe they tried, but I believe it was not feasible on mobile Safari due to its functional limitation. And their audience would not be willing to switch to desktop, which is understandable.
They saw the writing on the wall: People who use the product, become emotionally entangled, and then attempt or complete suicide following their experience open up the company to litigation from the families.
