Reddit is ending RSS feeds in November and its free public API by March 2027, blaming AI scraping. Fair protection of its site, or closing off the open web?
Reddit says RSS has become "a common surface for large-scale scraping and automated abuse". Moderators' tools, researchers and app developers will need approved access, while Reddit's non-ad revenue, mostly from licensing data to AI firms, rose 24% to $43m last quarter.
What happened
Reddit announced on 30 September that RSS feeds will stop working on 13 November 2026 and public API access will end in March 2027. Developers must register approved apps and bots by 12 January 2027 to keep access. Reddit says RSS has become "a common surface for large-scale scraping and automated abuse". Moderators are being pointed to a Discord Relay app, with no direct replacement for ordinary feed readers. Old Reddit will be limited to users who have used it in the last six months.
Why people disagree
Supporters say Reddit pays to host the content and has the right to stop AI companies harvesting it for free, especially as data licensing is now a real business (its non-ad revenue rose 24% to $43m in Q2). Critics say the posts are written by users and the communities run by unpaid moderators, that feed readers and researchers lose out, and that paying clients can still get the data, so the change is about money more than abuse.
What's still unclear
It is unclear how many apps and researchers will be approved, what access will cost, and whether the change actually reduces scraping. Other platforms may follow.
Sources
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