If you try to visit a great majority of communities on Reddit.com lately, you'll likely run into this prompt:
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Apparently, Reddit moderators are having a bitch-fit over the ownership locking down the site's API. (An API is basically a bit of software that allows third-party applications to link into a big remote database.) The official reasoning for doing this is to avoid the site being data-mined by language models, like ChatGPT. In actuality, I believe their shuttering of the free API is because they don't want anyone to be using the advertisment-dodging alternative apps available on Google Play and iOS. They've made API access prohibitively expensive - similar to what Twitter started doing under Elon Musk. Naturally, the alternative front-end apps are shutting down, because it would cost them upwards of $20 million USD per year to have access to Reddit.
From what I hear, Reddit is getting ready to become publicly traded, so it's really no surprise that they've started to crack down. They need every revenue stream they can get their hands on. Blocking data-miners and unofficial front-ends is a logical step towards profitability. I honestly don't blame these big corpos for doing what they do. The line must always go up. It's illegal to do anything otherwise.
We'll see how long the redditors can hold out against their corporate overlords. I suspect it wont last long. If they really cared so much about their communities, they'd start ponying up the cash to become self-hosted forums; just like in the old days. Just like this website.
But everyone is smartphone-addicted and inextricably tied to big-tech applications, so I don't see that happening any time soon.
