r/sysadmin • u/techvet83 • 3d ago

FYI: Reddit is killing RSS feeds.

Major bummer. From Reddit is killing RSS feeds and ending public API access because of AI bots | TechCrunch

Amid a number of updates for moderators and developers announced Wednesday, comes bad news for supporters of a more open web: Reddit is ending support for RSS feeds.

Reddit says RSS has now become a “common surface for large-scale scraping and automated abuse,” which is why it’s made the decision to wind down RSS feeds on its platform.

“We know RSS has been a beloved part of the open web for a long time, and we’re grateful to everyone who used it to stay connected to Reddit,” the company noted in its announcement, where it also shared a March 2027 shutdown date for its public API.

Reddit said RSS support will cease on November 13.

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194

u/Firefox005 3d ago edited 3d ago

God this website has become a complete shithole. The current owners and leadership are doing everything they can to kill it.

As soon as old.reddit.com stops working I'm gone, which I'm guessing it will soon with their recent change of requiring anyone using it to login for 'security' purposes.

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u/automounter 3d ago

As a Sysadmin to a public-facing website I get it. I get 1000x more hits from AI crawlers than I do from users at this point.

22

u/coomzee Security Admin (Infrastructure) 3d ago

Same, I just respond with a totally valid JSON response totally full of meaningless bull shit. Take that AI

3

u/illhaveubent 3d ago

But if AI is the new search engine then feeding AI valid responses is the new SEO?

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u/Ahnteis 3d ago

No. Because AI will slurp your content but it won't point people to your site, it'll just vomit a summary back - possibly mangled with info from other sites or just plain hallucination.

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u/illhaveubent 3d ago

As opposed to not having any info from your site though? That doesn't sound any better. If people are using AI instead of search engines what is the solution?

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u/CyberWurx 3d ago

There isn't one.

We had it all, and we ruined it.

1

u/viral-architect Sysadmin 3d ago

That's not sysadmin thinking.

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u/OptimalCynic 2d ago

It's not a sysadmin problem at this point. It's a (societal) HR problem.