I'd love to give you the reason why I decided just the other day that I want to leave reddit pretty much for good. I have been a fairly active user for the past 2 years or so, both commenting on and submitting content to reddit. When I joined I was fleeing digg's transformation into a 4chan wannabe. Over the past 6-9 months, I've been noticing the same virus, if you will, infecting reddit. The users became more and more meme obsessed, less interested in reading stuff they don't know and more interested in repeating what they already know. I finally looked at the front page the other day and realized there wasn't one article that I viewed had any intellectual value. Yes, I know if I want something specific I can go to individual subreddits, but even most of those has been infected to the point where some users are creating their own academic hideaways on reddit in order to preserve the original reddit intellectualism that once strived (e.g. /r/depthhub).

This is not something reddit can fix, and I fear that reddit will meet the same fate that digg has recently met. Both digg and reddit gained users at a steady pace, then skyrocketed in users and plummeted in intellectual value. On both sites users complained about how the site had changed but no one listened or cared. Eventually, as all the intellectually curious users left, the users that remained realized they are no better than 4chan and began looking for a new home as well. I believe this is an inevitable cycle for all social news websites. I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years I am fleeing Hacker News for the same reason.

I'd love to hear what some of the reddit admins think about how reddit has changed over the years, seeing as you all have had a better perspective than anyone else on reddit's evolution.

Good luck monetizing reddit, I will most likely donate some to show my appreciation for all reddit has provided me for the last couple of years.