I think that's where they're headed intentional or not, but probably intentional. I think they're trying to pivot their business model. If I had to guess what will happen going forward in broad strokes.

• Strike will break one way or another (mod removal most likely)
• Huge mod turnover
• Moderation quality takes a nosedive with spam, thinly-veiled ads, porn, and trolling ending up more and more prevalent in regular subs
• Confidence of power-users starts to evaporate once the post quality sucks and niche subs devolve to /pics and discussion turns into the Youtube comments section
• Comments become heavily restricted by Admins to pump their upcoming IPO
• NSFW content either gets eradicated or heavily restricted by admins to pump their upcoming IPO
• Slow diaspora of power-users to nowhere/federated platforms/new centralized platforms/niche forums/discord
• Vast majority that's left are Tiktok adjacent crowd scrolling though the site upvoting and downvoting (though that's being gamed even more than currently) with little meaningful discussion or community in subs anymore

so like 9gag.

Bonus-round predictions:

• Google has to re-rank search results because Reddit isn't a treasure trove of niche knowledge and mostly-real user experiences anymore
• AI firms scraping Reddit for LLM data will cease eventually and most likely start redirecting that to where the real discussion's are happening
• /spez will have cashed out soon after the IPO, carrying buckets of money off into the sunset
• New leadership and duty to make all the cash will finish strangling the holdout's of Old Reddit
• Invasive ads and lack of anything resembling good content will make the site a shell of its former self.

I'll be surprised if this process takes another 5 years, but by year 10 I definitely think the downfall will be complete.

I think they’re working under the assumption that the majority of users don’t care enough to leave and that new mods and people will step up after the exodus. Their actions, however, paint a picture that it’s going worse for them than they planned, if they’re taking specific reforming actions to counter the backlash. Or spez has just gone full Elon.