Communities have gravity, and its incredibly difficult to escape those gravity wells. Even if the power-users that produce valuable content move somewhere else, the subreddits they used will just link to that content, but keep the discussion on Reddit.
But I am skeptical that there’s a critical mass of users necessary for truly reversing Reddit’s plans. With the IPO approaching, I feel like the best they can hope for is a temporary stay of execution.
Surely, there is nothing in writing that has been agreed to that Reddit owes anything to the health of communities.
No one could possibly say this about usenet and I don't really see the difference.