Since I use RSS to follow Reddit, I intend to discontinue my Reddit use on November 13, unless Reddit backtracks on their user-hostile decision to drop RSS.
Had I not already pretty-much abandoned Reddit 9 years ago, when it was already succumbing to an increasing barrage of enshittification, then this would be the last straw for me, too.
The most ridiculous part of Reddit’s announcement was the suggestion that subreddit moderators replace RSS feeds with Discord notifications. What perversity, insanity to recommend a competing social network as the only practical way to use yours! I’m also skeptical of Reddit’s public excuse for dropping RSS: bot scraping. As I noted back in June, Reddit is already rate-limiting RSS feeds. If the current limits are insufficient, why not impose stricter limits? For my personal use, 1000 or even 500 RSS feed requests per day, over 50 maximum feeds, should suffice. If that’s not low enough to stop large-scale scraping, then I suspect RSS is not actually Reddit’s real problem.
Given that Reddit has been working hard at making sure they're legally-sound to use data for AI training, so they can sell data to, say, Microsoft, I'd say that this isn't so much about preventing scraping as it is about not devaluing an upcoming "pay-to-play" strategy for scrapers.
It's all for naught eventually, of course. Enshittification favours short-term financial gains at the expense of long-term customer retention, and this change, like all the others lately, will ultimately increase the downward pressure on Reddit's value... both financially and as an actual useful platform.
So yeah: Reddit's about to suck a little bit more. But given the trend it's been on for the last decade or more... it shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody at this point.
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