Reddit, like all companies, needs to grow or die. If you're not happy with this change, think about why Reddit needs to make it and address the root cause.
The solution is bankruptcy, and a new site that 99% of redditors aren't aware of yet.
It's a distillation of the early reddit into a discussion platform that speaks activitypub. This means that the goal is not to have "one site" to rule them all, but that communities can each create their own and then interact with others if they chose to.
An demo instance is at https://littr.me
I disagree with the base premise. Not all companies need growth in order to survive, or to thrive.
Companies seeking highly speculative investment are not all companies. I don't think they're even the majority of companies.
If your company isn't growing but the market is, your company is shrinking. If your company isn't growing and the market isn't growing, how long will that market last? How many markets are stable over decades?
Shrinking relative to the addressable market.