Reddit sets dates to close RSS and its public API

RSS loses its open-web role

Reddit said RSS had become a convenient way to collect data at scale and automate abuse. The company acknowledged the format’s long-standing place in the open internet and thanked users who relied on it to follow updates.

RSS feeds let apps and readers receive site updates in a standard format. Once a fixture of the blog era, they remain a way to follow Reddit without relying on Reddit’s own interface. The shutdown will leave no replacement for feeds used outside moderator communities.

Moderators who use RSS alerts are being directed to Discord Relay Devvit. Reddit recommends checking settings and moving workflows before November 13. Some moderators have warned that losing RSS will make their work harder; other users have said it is how they read Reddit.

The API becomes a commercial boundary

The public API is scheduled to close by March 2027. That affects social-monitoring services, research tools and AI products, including assistants that use Reddit discussions to answer questions. After the shutdown, those products will need to give up access to Reddit data or reach a commercial agreement with the company.

Reddit’s financial results give that boundary a business context: second-quarter revenue from sources other than advertising rose 24% year over year to $43 million, and data sales have become a distinct revenue stream.

The company also says it is working on a Rules Hub and changes to automated moderation. It plans to restrict Old Reddit for logged-in users in the coming months, leaving access only to people who visited in the previous 90 days. Developers of approved third-party apps and bots must register by January 12, 2027; Reddit says it will disable API access for developers who have not registered after that date.

What access will still mean

I think the important shift is not simply that Reddit is removing older tools. It is deciding which uses of its data can continue, and on what terms. The API closure makes that clearest: AI assistants and research products may keep access only through a commercial agreement.

What Reddit has not said here is how those agreements will work, or what access will cost. That leaves a practical divide between approved partners and everyone else—and makes the company’s stated fight against scraping inseparable from its control over a growing data business.