If they remove the battle API, the servers will be slammed with scripts running headless browsers using Selenium and it will be more resource-intensive, it will lead to IPs getting banned eventually. It's a cat-and-mouse game.

Pawning off that risk and a different business model onto forked versions of Splinterlands (spinoffs) run by different companies will result in approaches that prevent the status quo without Steem Monsters imposing their will. There are other benefits to forks as well, which go well beyond the botting issue. Also, if bots for Splinterlands are so in-demand, what does that say about the game play itself?