Yeah, I think that's a possible way that this goes down. I also think that if they did that it'd be a mistake. I think Apollo, RIF, and the other 3rd party apps are gone. Even if reddit announced yesterday that they were going to keep the API free, let alone negotiate a middle ground, I think 3rd party apps are gone and not coming back. On the 3rd party level I don't even really think it's the cash grab that's the problem, it's the lack of communication and trust. Even if reddit were to bend over backwards to try to keep them, I don't think there's anything they can do to make up for the lack of trust this has created in reddit's leadership. Same thing goes for the mods. The mods are arguably reddits most important users. They make the site usable for everyone else and if reddit was ever to become profitable I think the people spez would have to thank for that would be the mods who made the spaces that people wanted to come be a part of. They can't trust reddits leadership either. It doesn't matter what shiny new toys reddit may try to roll out to make their job easier, it doesn't matter what exceptions they try to carve into their new API policy. Common thread here is noone wants to sink their time into something that might change as fast as reddit has shown it can. Being a 3rd party dev or a mod takes a lot of time out of your day. Faced with the choice of leaving or laboring for a company that clearly doesn't respect the value you add to their service I think that most would choose to flee the sinking ship.