Reddit

I believe it's a bait.

Over at r/ModCoord they say they held a private call with some developers, none of the 3rd party apps devs were invited apparently.

There's a sticky post containing full notes of the call (I don't know if it's ok to link reddit here so I won't), their promises are really vague, "promising" to let some apps use the API for free is only one of them, they're offering to postpone the API changes if mods don't close the subs, and they're making a lot of excuses for their very lacking tools, "promising" they'll do better this time.

If we consider they're going public later this year, it makes sense they're trying to damage control as much as possible so the protest doesn't ruin their IPO, while actually having no intention to follow up on their words.

If magazines start picking up on their empty words, like the article you linked, it could appear redditors are protesting for nothing, that would be really sad.