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If that's the case, whitelisting the most popular apps might be somewhat of a solution, no? Also I think being transparent about the fears that LLMs take from your site without returning any value would probably be met with understanding from the userbase.

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The issue is, Reddit is ad supported. The popular apps bypass showing ads.

The problem goes away if the apps charge for a subscription, which covers their API access.

This could have been solved by only allowing Reddit premium users to make use of the API (they don’t see ads). in addition, the API cost is about 20 times more lucrative than a user seeing ads, which is an insane upsell. Then there’s the issue that Reddit won’t allow NSFW content over the API, which is just total BS in the picture you drew.

On the flip side, if they wanted to kill the popular apps, why wouldn't they just block them directly instead of doing so indirectly through crazy API pricing?

Maybe they think an obscure way to close down apps will lead to less dissent?

Clearly it isn't. Could be a miscalculation on their part, but I still think it more plausible they are hoping to find a big customer who will actually pay those prices.

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