Reddit Says Goodbye to RSS and Public API to Feed the AI Beast
Reddit is officially putting the lights out on RSS feeds and shredding its public API. Apparently, open data is so last decade when you can just lock the gates and start charging developers for the privilege of training their bots.
Starting November 13, Reddit will permanently disable its RSS feeds, labeling the technology a playground for scrapers rather than a useful utility. The company is directing moderators to move their automated workflows to Discord Relay, a tool built on the Devvit platform, effectively forcing users into a walled garden where the company maintains total control.
The purge continues into 2027, as the public API will be shuttered by March. New application requests vanish on October 31, 2026, and by January 12, Reddit will block any access for unregistered apps. Meanwhile, even the nostalgic Old Reddit interface is getting hit, as it will soon be restricted only to users who have been active within the last six months, likely to prevent casual browsing without tracking.
This aggressive cleanup is not about security; it is about maximizing the value of the platform's "other revenue" category. Reddit recently reported a 24% spike in this segment—reaching $43 million—largely thanks to lucrative licensing deals with AI developers eager to feast on user-generated content. By cutting off free access, the company ensures that if anyone wants a piece of the conversation, they have to pay the toll.
The era of the open web on Reddit is essentially being liquidated to inflate quarterly earnings for shareholders. When human interaction is reduced to a commodity for training large language models, the community that built the site becomes nothing more than a free dataset for corporate giants to harvest.
Source: TechCrunch
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