Reddit to kill RSS feeds on November 13

Reddit's move against RSS and its public API comes as the company is increasingly monetizing its user-generated content through AI licensing deals. In its second quarter, Reddit said its "other revenue" beyond advertising grew 24% year-over-year to $43 million, a sum that helps explain why it no longer wants to give that data away for free. The RSS shutdown and API closure are part of a broader tightening that also includes adding safeguards to Old Reddit, limiting access to logged-in moderators and recent users, and restricting Old Reddit access to those who have used it in the last 90 days.

For years, RSS was a standard way to follow website updates, especially during the blogging era, and Reddit's decision removes one of the last open channels into its forums. Moderators have already complained that losing RSS would make Reddit unmanageable for them, and the company's suggested alternative, the Discord Relay Devvit app, does not cover every use case. The public API shutdown will similarly affect social listening products, research tools, and AI assistants that currently answer questions using Reddit content.

The outcome hinges on whether moderators and developers can migrate their workflows in time and whether Reddit's paid data deals become a viable path for the AI products that lose free access. For Reddit, the bet appears to be that tighter control will protect its data licensing revenue without alienating the communities that generate the content in the first place.