Continued abuse of the service from automated apps, AI tools, web scrapers and bots

Resolved

Aggressive automation and bots are flooding Open RSS for feed content at unmanageable levels that are hogging resources, significantly degrading the reliability of the service, and slowing down the responsiveness of feed content for RSS readers and users.

The unusually large amounts traffic at extremely rapid rates that come from automation tools and bots have always had a negative impact on the performance of the service. But, Open RSS has still tried to accommodate the behavior, mainly to prevent disrupting the experience for the users relying on these tools.

However, the number of automated tools engaging in this abusive behavior has become large enough to severely degrade the service to unusable levels. Additionally, despite restrictions being placed upon these applications, they still find ways to evade them, and continue the abusive behavior with new methods.

The amount of time required to combat this behavior is extravagant and, with limited donations, we're unable to afford the additional costs required to continue accommodating the behavior. Continuing to chase solutions isn't feasible and frankly, has become quite a threat to the long-term sustainability of the organization.