user experience has always suffered on social media sites that go public and answer to profits they stop caring about the community. and only try selling us shit or sell the content we create. without us reddit wouldnt exist and they need a reminder of that.

A highly profitable Reddit would be one whose product was reader-paid moderation service.

https://stratechery.com/2019/a-framework-for-moderation/

Well, look at hacker news. the content and audience is different but ultimately it lets you

1. browse topics 2. comment on topics 3. review your history of topics, like favorites, comment histories, etc.

So in an ideal world, you do that with no friction.

But inevitably, you need to introduce some friction in order to be profitable. be it ads, data mining (to sell to ad companies), or outright asking a user to pay to do the above features.

I don't know what route reddit will go, but it will inevitably need to introduce even more friction to be more profitable.

It would look like facebook - less and less content, more and more ads. It would be bad for redditors because modern surveillance capitalism/adtech industries are inherently manipulative, deceitful, and will always place profit before the well-being of those consuming the ads.