Reddit API Access Is Now a Gate, Not a Promise

The 2023 API protests were loud, coordinated, and brief. The 2026 rejections are the opposite — individual developers posting on technical subreddits, asking for advice, and then quietly moving on. A developer who wanted a private app for themselves and their partner framed their question as a status inquiry: 'What's the current status and process of getting a key?' ^[2] — as if the barrier might have lifted. It had not. Another developer building a learning project — a mock Reddit interface — did not even ask about API access;…