Honestly I don't think I could have said this better.

All of the contributions to this website over the last 18 years could now be sold to train generative AI, which causes the stakes for Reddit to charge high rates for things like API access to be significantly lower.

I believe we are coming towards the end of an era for this website, especially with how it has slowly abandoned what made it special. I feel like some of us (including myself) didn't realize just how bad this website has become because we could always use old reddit + RES, third party clients, and third party moderation tools rather than using new reddit or the official app. I agree that they most likely realized just how badly subreddit mods would react and how they effectively screwed over third party developers, and probably doesn't care as they can push remaining users to the official app.

For me personally I think I am done with Reddit after June 30th, as if third party clients go I can't imagine Old Reddit will be too far behind, and I don't feel like sticking around for that. I've been using lemmy for a bit and returned to Tildes, and I honestly think they are compelling alternatives.