I feel like the “real reason” behind this stems from the pricing for AI training. Reddit wants to capitalize on its user-generated content for AI training. the safest way to do this, and ensure that no AI company can do this, and those large AI companies can’t argue that they’re getting unfair pricing compared to app developers.

That’s reddit’s big plan: sell user-generated content to large AI companies. That’s how you make a platform like reddit profitable. You resell content you got for free to massive companies willing to pay high prices for that content.