> Reddit does say, however, that it can eject moderators who are inactive and that “we step in to rearrange mod teams, so active mods are empowered to make decisions for their community.” The pro-blackout r/AdviceAnimals moderator who was ejected was accused by their fellow mod of being inactive for a year.
So after a while, since the subs are private, there won't be any activity to moderate and thus the moderators will become "inactive," at which point someone else can request the subreddit.
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Edit: A better link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36347711
> If a moderator team unanimously decides to stop moderating, we will invite new, active moderators to keep these spaces open and accessible to users. If there is no consensus, but at least one mod wants to keep the community going, we will respect their decisions and remove those who no longer want to moderate from the mod team.
Moderators exist to moderate a community, not to shut it down wholesale. Reddit's response is the only reasonable one they could have made. If the majority of your userbase likes sub X and some mods (fewer than 10 for such a sub) want to shut it down, then of course Reddit would open it back up.
People here on HN and Reddit decrying this as the end of Reddit likely don't remember all of the controversies of Reddit over the past 17 years since it's been active. Hell, most of the current userbase came in after the most recent blackout in 2015 due to Ellen Pao firing Victoria. This has all happened before, with no effect to Reddit, indeed, much the opposite, seeing their user growth numbers.