The reddit API is a legacy feature that is on the chopping block any day now. Its only real purpose now is 3rd party clients which don't show adverts or insert tracking scripts. It has a small amount of use for bots but those are mostly a negative user experience and likely to be killed soon as well.

Reddit is pushing to become facebook without your real name.

> without your real name.

With extensive user profiles and now very visible profile pictures, I'm not sure that this isn't going to come as well.

I wouldn't be surprised if they started asking for your phone number as well, as so many privacy-invading sites like to do these days.

This seems very likely. Reddit admins have mentioned that they are trying to crack down on alt accounts and banned users signing up 2 seconds after being banned. A phone number requirement would solve that easily.

Ha ha, now we're back to secret incantations like when AdBlock first came out! You'd tell your friends and family, "Oh, you gotta get it!" for something whose "discoverability" is very, very low.

The day old.reddit.com goes away is the same day I completely stop using reddit. The main interface is actively unusable for me.