The Reddit API Exile Is Over, but the Ecosystem It Destroyed Will Not Return

The 2023 API pricing changes did not just shut down third-party clients. They dismantled a knowledge commons. The developer who asked about current API approval status in r/RedditAPI received no answers ^[2]. The thread is not hostile — it is empty. The people who used to answer those questions — hobbyists, tinkerers, independent client developers — are no longer present in the forums. The documentation, workaround tricks, and community troubleshooting posts that made the ecosystem self-sustaining have decayed. Reddit restored the endpoints, but it did not restore the social infrastructure…