Elon is a dufus. But Twitter burned about half a billion per year before being aquired. Those silicon valley companies are unprofitable zombies for decades without it's users even realizing that the service won't be free forever. They continue eating through borrowed venture capital and investment rounds (expecting returns). Having to charge a price for your service is ok, but it's harder after it was free & doing it without an explanation. It's a given that reddit is still very much unprofitable but their PR would be in a much better position if they were more transparent instead of just dictating changes & terms to their volunteers.