Excerpt:
Most major subreddits show a decrease of between 50 and 90 percent in average daily posts and comments, when compared to a year ago. This suggests the problem is way fewer users, not the same number of users browsing less. The huge and universal dropoff also suggests that people left, either because of the changes or the protests, and they aren’t coming back.
I feel like spez just wildly overestimated the level of love/addiction the average user has for Reddit.
Clearly he figured that people were so attached to the platform that they could be coerced into using the official app.
In a beautiful miscalculation, it appears that many, many users would rather just leave entirely than to use it.
The app which, by the way, they also bought out (somewhat forcibly if I am remembering correctly) from a third party then ran it into the ground.