This organized “protest” is starting to look like a great move from Reddit to flush the userbase to replace with new users. Field burning is a commonly used (unsustainable) technique in agriculture.
- the homepage, /r/all, the default subs, served on the new reddit page and app
- the obscure and basement level subs that won't ever see more that a few thousand users (shout out to /r/donteatjimmy), probably viewed by people stuck on old.reddit or a third party client
Heavily pushing the former, and further pushing the latter into a dark corner would have sufficed. They'd had little to no backlash, and could have still boasted huge user engagement etc.
They already had the invite only and private sub mechanism, that could have worked to push the old users into communities that don't get advertised, and potentially have them pay for access.
All of that just to say, there was probably many realistic and not so complicated ways to deal with renewing the user base, all of them looking like better business decisions to me. With the current approach, I'm not sure where they'll get new users from, I don't see the TikTokers moving to Reddit whatever they do, and my grandma isn't coming either just because the furry subs have gone away.
Social media users are notoriously fickle. If you have a vast, devoted community of longtime users, the last thing you want to do is drive them all away.
I think Reddit just got too entitled: forgot how much they rely on their users and figured they could get away with anything because they're just too indispensable to fail. It happens.
The value of Reddit to human society at large and the value it provides the corporate that owns it are not at all aligned. There’s a potential they negatively correlate, even. They need new people going through the gates to the Library of Alexandria, and the books are just means to it.