Ask HN: Why Reddit blocks all automated access but has .json for all URLs?

Reddit is aggressively blocking all automated access (see their robots.txt) and uses a lot of heuristics to block crawlers that do not honor it.

However, at the same time all Reddit URLs can be made machine readable by adding a .json to the end.

Can anyone explain what's the point of that?

3 points | by ksajadi 2 hours ago

2 comments

  • downbad_ 2 hours ago
    I just want to know why Reddit keeps banning people for no good reason,while letting bots roam free.
    [-]
    • ksajadi 1 hour ago
      It's turned into a bizarre place. Today I asked the same question on /r/meta and my question was immediately removed without explanation. I tried to message the mods and got bounced with a "you cannot send a message to that user"
  • PaulHoule 2 hours ago
    Circa 2009 or so I was interested in automated link building systems, there were some sites that had no defenses, but I saw enough going on around Reddit that I just didn't want to mess with it.