Reddit ends RSS feeds and winds down public API by March 2027 to block AI scraping

What happened. On September 30, 2026 Reddit announced it will end RSS feed support on November 13, 2026, stop accepting new public API access requests after October 31, 2026, begin removing access for unregistered apps on January 12, 2027, and close the public API entirely in March 2027. It is also restricting Old Reddit to logged-in recent users. Reddit says RSS has become 'a common surface for large-scale scraping and automated abuse.' Moderators are pointed to a Discord Relay Devvit app; for non-moderator RSS use, Reddit says there is no replacement.

Why it matters to creators. Reddit's forums are one of the largest repositories of human conversation on the web and a key training-data source: Google and OpenAI already pay Reddit for data licenses, Reddit reports AI data licensing pushed 'other revenue' up 24% YoY to $43M, and it is suing Anthropic and Perplexity over unlicensed scraping. Closing free access funnels AI training use toward paid licensing, which cuts off the scraped supply but also consolidates creators' work behind commercial deals they do not negotiate.

Not yet known. Whether AI companies honor the March 2027 cutoff in practice; the commercial terms of any new licensing deals; effects on research and non-commercial tooling.