I think the people this change will hurt are in large part fine with paying a reasonable sum for API access. I have no idea what reddit would consider a reasonable number (if they actually tried), but for me it's probably in the $1-5/month range.
That's full API access of course, not the limited API they've had which doesn't allow e.g. vote interaction, nor an API without NSFW content like they are proposing now with the ridiculous $12,000/50M requests.
Of course they aren't interested in being reasonable here, they obviously just want to kill off 3rd party apps. I actually don't get why they don't just go out and say it, what they're communicating now is just death with extra steps.
