Terrible impression to make on new customers, thus Costco decides, eh, fuck it, let's just get rid of the little room entirely to avoid this repetitious problem.
But they're also free to wander around the rest of the store shouting whatever they want. They hang out by the front door with the greeters even! Up until now, Costco hasn't cared that they're providing a comfy space for these loudmouthed assholes to congregate.
You can't just not go to the corner if you want to avoid them, you have to avoid all the parts of the store that they are shouting in.
Its a meaningful argument from the POV of Reddit management, and their effort to build a profitable business, given that what people can be linked to that is tied to Reddit -- unlike what people can be linked to that is not tied to Reddit -- impacts the perception of Reddit and both the audience it attracts and its attractiveness to advertisers.
Oh absolutely. I'm not disputing that. Of course they are doing all of this in pursuit of profit (or at least in pursuit of pleasing their board). The trouble is that, in my view, there is a conflict between the goal of pleasing the reddit board and the goal of creating a vibrant community.
If you can't run a business that brings in the money to keep the lights on, you can't maintain a vibrant community, either.
I think a lot of the issue is that lots of people are attached to conditions that are only made possible by the willingness of investors to tolerate Reddit's lack of profitability in the expectation that that will be turned around in the future, but that that willingness is not sustainable.