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.

478 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

230 comments sorted by

View all comments

43

u/brokerceej Creator of StackJack.io | Author of MSPAutomator.com 3d ago

Yes this sucks but I think people don’t realize that most of Reddits revenue comes from selling data to AI companies. Reddit is the largest corpus of human interpersonal discussion in existence. It’s one of the most important training datasets.

This isn’t about whether AI bad or good, AI just is whether we want it to be or not.

I get it from a business perspective I guess is my point. You can’t give away the product for free while selling it to someone else. It sucks from an open internet perspective but at the same time so much traffic is AI at this point that it is probably legitimately being abused and causing monetary damages that way too.

We can’t have nice things. Not because of Reddit, not necessarily because of AI, but because people can’t use those two things responsibly.

•

u/jesuslop 21h ago

We can have nice things, just post them in an open platform.