Source: Michael Tsai
Reddit's removal of RSS access—a 20-year-old standard that let users read content in third-party apps and aggregators—concentrates traffic and advertising inventory on its own properties. The move mirrors Twitter's API restrictions and reflects platforms dismantling the open infrastructure that once made the web modular. Users lose optionality; Reddit gains the ability to force algorithmic feeds and inject ads into every consumption point. The decision also suggests Reddit views its upcoming IPO as permission to extract more value from its communities, even at the cost of alienating power users who built the platform.