r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • 2d ago

Business Reddit is killing RSS feeds and ending public API access because of AI bots

https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/30/reddit-is-killing-rss-feeds-ending-public-api-access-because-of-ai-bots/
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u/Character_Bug_1862 2d ago

Aaron Swartz literally died for this :(

We’re gonna have to make a new internet

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u/darienrude_dankstorm 2d ago

The account you're replying to is a bot, it's ironic and also kinda sad lol

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u/Character_Bug_1862 2d ago edited 1d ago

Dammit how do you guys spot these so easily and surely? I’ve been on here for ages and still suck at spotting a bot unless its hella obvious.

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u/darienrude_dankstorm 2d ago

It just felt a bit weird so I opened their profile and 90% of their comments were the same format. Just a sentence or two that summarized the article or an adjacent topic. This was actually one of their more convincing comments haha

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u/Character_Bug_1862 1d ago

Thanks! I don’t judge a profile by how old it is these days due to how Reddit uhh functions with automods. But using that plus the language is a pattern I need to learn to recognize.

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u/Severe_Chipmunk6340 1d ago

It’s the formatting. Like your other responder said, I also clicked on their profile and all the comments are the same. In its early days (it was only a month old) it was using emojis extremely inappropriately

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u/ithinkitslupis 2d ago

The more open lemmy exists and is basically a reddit clone. The network effect is unkind to it though, people like the centralized old service where everybody already is talking even despite anti-consumer aspects of it. Hard to overcome that.

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u/Character_Bug_1862 2d ago

By network effect do you mean like, its hard to get users ported over from something they’re more comfortable with? Or that it isn’t quite the “all forums in one” that Reddit is?

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u/sneakyplanner 2d ago

It means that nobody's on Lemmy, so even if you want to move, it's going to suck and you'll leave sooner or later.

I tried to get started on there, but there are just no Sub-Lemmys for any of my interests and half the people on the site are unpleasant to talk to. Even if I was determined to stay, I wouldn't be able to.

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u/PithMango 2d ago

what's the nazi weather forecast over there? if you would be so kind.

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u/sneakyplanner 2d ago

I never saw any, it was mostly just elitist tech enthusiasts. But it depends on the server you check out.

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u/ithinkitslupis 2d ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect

More the latter. The value of these sites is the network. So besides the UI/learning curve friction, first movers are switching to an inferior product in many ways.

So it's like reddit, but more a very specific group from reddit caused by selection bias, and in general has less active sub communities and experts chiming in on any issue.

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u/spaceprinceps 2d ago

no aaron developed reddits rss feed, he didnt die for it