Many moons ago, I distributed a mobile app that was effectively just a UI client into a SaaS API. The first step in the setup was to login to your account in a web browser, obtain an API key, and paste it into my app. This was the key used to authenticate and authorize all requests to the third party API.
Why can't the same flow be used here? Just require users to obtain their own Reddit API key, and let the app be a thin client that doesn't ship with any keys owned by the devs themselves. I'd be happy to pay-for-my-own API usage.
Getting a Reddit API key seems to be a more complex process than the usual, with the first step being submitting a service ticket [0]. I imagine that this would also help Reddit prevent people from doing what you're suggesting, if it were to become popular.
Why can't the same flow be used here? Just require users to obtain their own Reddit API key, and let the app be a thin client that doesn't ship with any keys owned by the devs themselves. I'd be happy to pay-for-my-own API usage.