I just set up all the subreddits I still want to following in Reeder, an RSS app. I’m able scroll through the posts ad free. It the occurred to me that this is a loss of revenue to Reddit. Could RSS be the new target for onerous fees?
It could be the case that RSS usage is small compared to 3rd party apps like Apollo so not of much concern. It also may be the case that it isn’t possible for Reddit to charge for the usage. If they can’t charge, they may just disable RSS altogether. I’m only guessing. I’ll take off my tinfoil hat now.
It’s hard to imagine a practical reason to do so. This, however, has not been a good heuristic for determining what a CEO having a temper tantrum will do, so who the hell knows.
There’s an absolutely practical reason for doing it that’s consistent with everything they’ve done so far - they want to control how we get to and see Reddit. So that they can advertise in the feed etc.
RSS means you can skip the normal feed (where they would advertise) and go straight to the post.
It’s not a good idea - they seem to have forgotten that user hostile decisions reduce the number of users - but it does make sense in their twisted world. I’m amazed they still work.