Yeah, but I feel like Reddit has become the next Facebook. The young and techy crowd started using it first, and eventually boomers and non-techy people started using it. I would bet that the better majority of users don't care about any of the issues that are going on. They just want the content.

Now hopefully, the primary submitters of the content leave and Reddit's decline comes from a shitty userbase that doesn't actually contribute anything. But that's gonna take time.

idk, I think a few definitely will, however I think it will be like Netflix where people accept it until lemmy/kbin/fediverse as better options all together.

With the first blackout, any user who didn't bother to change remained on reddit. With July first, those on 3. Party Apps will be gone unless they actively surrender by switching to the official app.

U/Spez might think a majority uses the official app and that nothing is lost on 3. Party users who won't generate ad revenue anyway. However those users are probably the content creators that make the website worth a visit for all the "normies" that use the official app and costume ads

Also I won't be surprise that reddit will add more bots in the comments.

Without an open API, there's no way to verify exactly how many "meatspace" users there are on reddit. This is a key piece of information to hold that, say, facebook has always held close to their chest.

Advertisers ultimately pay for "impressions", and that number can be ofuscated and inflated (ie counting bots) to entice advertisers and IPO investors to continue to invest.

Turning off the API is turning off active user verification.