this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2023
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Reddit Migration

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### About Community Tracking and helping #redditmigration to Kbin and the Fediverse. Say hello to the decentralized and open future. To see latest reeddit blackout info, see here: https://reddark.untone.uk/

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Ironically this API issue will kill bots, which was needed.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It will only slow them temporarily you don't need api for bots

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Correct. Now the bots will be constantly scraping the pages of every post which will be a much bigger burden on their servers.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

It's funny, years ago websites switched to openly available APIs specifically to lessen server burden because of bots. Now they're swapping away from APIs because of bots, but those bots are just gonna go back to scraping.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Sounds like Reddit has a skill issue.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Exactly spez forgot why they needed an api

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, it'll only kill the useful ones in the long run.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Yeah. The unethical bots will just use scrapers, as they already do for the many websites that don't offer APIs. They're already violating ToS, so they don't care. Ethical ones won't have that option (at least not past the fairly low quota).

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

From my understanding, they already aren't using the API.

If the spam bots were using the API, then Reddit would have been able to shut them down trivially. Part of logging in via API requires a "client ID" that uniquely identifies the creator of the app/bot being used.

They could theoretically have each bot account create its own client ID, but even that would be a pretty obvious thing to look for.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Spam bots don't really need the API access level that calls for the increased fees.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Nah bots will still function

You think they're asking permission to access the API? lol