I believe he mentioned elsewhere that he is grandfathered into an older price but even the non-grandfathered price is much lower than what Reddit is going to charge. Another issue he mentioned in an interview is that the price changes are going into effect in 30 days and he can't pass the cost onto annual subscribers for another year. Other companies have given longer time frames when making changes to API pricing.
riku_iki|2 years ago
4x is not much lower given difference in capital investments and complexity of product