Disagree. Those users gave it freely to Reddit under the user agreement with them, which in turn allows them to use it basically however they please, including sub licensing. No one gave other companies permission to do so.

TLDR: read the things you agree to, next time

Almost certainly true. Historically, you’d just grab the dumps from pushshift.

https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/134tjpe/reddit_data_api_update_changes_to_pushshift_access/

“TL;DR: Pushshift is in violation of our Data API Terms and has been unresponsive despite multiple outreach attempts on multiple platforms, and has not addressed their violations. Because of this, we are turning off Pushshift’s access to Reddit’s Data API, starting today”