An API is like a question a service provides that it will programmatically answer. So reddit provided questions for getting all of its content for free. People built front end apps for viewing the content to match their preferences, provide anonymity, avoid ads, etc.
There were a lot of good reasons for reddit to stop providing that service free of charge, but they went full Corporate enshittificatioon where they made the pricing so awful it forced most of the apps to shut down.
Couple that with the protecting of /r/theDonald and other non-humanist political subs and, for me anyway, it was clear that the company wasn’t run by good people but by greedy people and things would only get worse.
An API is like a question a service provides that it will programmatically answer. So reddit provided questions for getting all of its content for free. People built front end apps for viewing the content to match their preferences, provide anonymity, avoid ads, etc.
There were a lot of good reasons for reddit to stop providing that service free of charge, but they went full Corporate enshittificatioon where they made the pricing so awful it forced most of the apps to shut down.
Couple that with the protecting of /r/theDonald and other non-humanist political subs and, for me anyway, it was clear that the company wasn’t run by good people but by greedy people and things would only get worse.