[OC] Two Year Retrospective: Did the Reddit API Controversy Lead to People Quitting Reddit?

Posted by J0hn-Stuart-Mill

17 comments

  1. The Data Source for this chart is self collected from bookmarked reddit usernames back in late June of 2023. I used Google Sheets to generate the chart itself.

    This data is based on 164 users who had very clearly stated in **reddit posts that they would be leaving or quitting reddit if the API changes were to go through on July 1st, 2023**. I was very curious to see how many of them would actually follow through, as it seemed like an obvious move that Reddit needed to do, to protect it’s best asset from being harvested for free by LLM and AI scraping entities.

    I attempted to get a representative sample, so in addition to just some major threads of people concerned with the API changes, I also tracked down at least one major thread for each of the following types of users: Apollo, BaconReader, and RIF.

    **Takeaways**

    For those who did leave permanently, a few of them mentioned that they would be “forced off” the platform, as they did not know how to access their account they had created with the third party apps themselves. One person signed off by saying something like “See you on the other side, with a new account”. I would say almost a third of the people who did actually quit reddit cited this reason, such as forgotten password, no account recovery info, unable or unsure how to reset password, etc.

    Of those who deleted their accounts, I can’t know exactly when they deleted their accounts (or if they continued using Reddit after July of 2023), other than to say that 5% had deleted their account by July 1, 2024, and another 2.5% had deleted their accounts at some point between July 2024, and July 2025. Also, for the suspended users, the number feels high, but I have no way to know how many people intentionally did something to break Reddit’s TOS as a means of leaving reddit, or if they got suspended other reasons entirely. But all of those suspensions did happen after July 1st, 2023, so that represents that they were still active in some capacity.

    As far as the remaining folks who are still reddit users:

    * 64% were still active at some point between August of 2023 and July 1, 2024
    * 55.5% were still active between July 1 2024, and July 1, 2025

    Remember, these are only users who wrote specifically in reddit posts that they were vowing to leave reddit, as that is the subset of user I wanted data on. I have zero data on the larger reddit userbase or how the API changes impacted less vocal Redditors’ usage of the site.

  2. Honestly that’s a larger ratio that stuck to their guns than I’d have expected. I would have guessed 90% who were vocal about it would have been back within a month.

    That said, the only metric that really matters in a macro sense is whether the total number of reddit users has grown, and whether that growth rate was affected by the protest actions.

    Interesting stuff!

  3. I would be interested in a control group, of people who didn’t participate in those threads, as we don’t know what the general turnover of reddit accounts is. I am sure there is a reasonable percentage of accounts that also stop posting entirely, or are deleted, for other reasons unrelated to the protest too.

  4. This is hilarious. This is only people who completely swore off reddit. I insisted to some people that reddit would not be harmed by the decision and people would keep using it. They thought I was totally wrong…

  5. Most fresh content posters left then too. 

    Fells like all that’s left All is ai slop posted to relationshipadvice and similar r/amithebadguy type subs 

    and reposts from twitter from tiktoc from reddit 5years ago.

  7. The sample size is pretty small, there is no comparison against engagement rates in the broader user base and there is no way you controlled for shit like people posting on alt accounts. In other words, this data isn’t that useful to me. Also not beautiful, lol

  8. no one would care if the official app wasnt so insanely garbage

  9. As one of the “active in the past week” crew, still here but I cancelled my paid account at the time and haven’t given them a dime since.

  10. I’m a PC user so I couldn’t tell what the big deal was in the first place, and still don’t.

  11. I don’t understand the the labels for the first two from the left. The first one: they stopped posting on 6/30/23, but are continuing to post after that – I don’t understand if they stopped or not. Second one: accounts that were deleted still have activity two years later – how is this possible?

    Are the labels meant to describe their intentions, rather than what they actually did?

  12. Most of us just found the workaround, I’m still using Baconreader, the day it stops, I stop.

  13. Is it just me or does the format of this graph make your eyes bleed? 

  14. I gave it a shot, but the alternatives just didn’t go the way I was hoping

    And thankfully hacked apps still work at least on Android, iOS has been not as fun since then (I miss Apollo)

  16. I’m “back” but nowhere near as active as I was, and the vibe here is noticably different since I returned in Feb. 

    Only reason I haven’t quit outright is there’s useful reference material in old posts. Eventually I’ll just ask AI “what did Reddit say about…” and won’t need to come back here.

  17. Reddit’s API journey: a rollercoaster of change, but the community’s resilience shines through.

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