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Make it a triple dip. Third party apps don't provide any analytics back to Reddit which is what Reddit really wants - they're A/B experimenting all the goddamn time and to be honest it's annoying that stuff always shifts around or gets shipped in a half broken state.

Also, clearly defined APIs take a lot of flexibility away from them, which is yet another thing that beancounters don't want.

Third party apps are just a client. My web browser doesn't provide them analytics back either, nor do I see their ads.

I dislike Reddit's narrative -- the Apollo dev himself is visibly gaslit by this one -- that the apps are "generating" API calls.

Nonsense.

Users generate API calls over client(s) of choice.

As soon as you understand that, you can apply first principles to the rest.

The users that pay for premium is probably also the most profitable ad viewers

Premium users get the option to turn ads off. It's one of the main features of premium.