I agree, hypeddit links should be whitelisted. They were blocked in 2022 without any discussion AFAICT
And there’s another thread from earlier this year about the exact same thing
If we can’t whitelist hypeddit for the free download relationship, maybe a custom relationship is needed, like we have for Allmusic for example, or maybe a new “download gate” rel type
All that being said, personal opinion warning ahead(!!)
I don't like download gates >:(
I’ve always thought download gates to be awful, sites like theartistunion, Hive, Toneden, Hypeddit, and click.dj are terrible because they can make you follow a bunch of accounts, like, repost and leave comments on soundcloud just to download a file that’s not even guaranteed to be lossless / high quality, just whatever the artist feels like sharing.
I’ve had a second soundcloud account for years just to use with download gates, so my soundcloud feed doesn’t get completely infested with stuff I don’t want to see.
I honestly can’t believe artists willingly pay for services like these, it feels like they’re squeezing their fanbase for likes / reposts etc.
Download gates have always been disliked in general, see these reddit threads - 1 2 3 4