I remember when Reddit announced it would begin charging commercial developers for access to its API, and in response, thousands of subreddits went dark in protest. I think it lasted for a couple of weeks. The CEO threatened the Reddit mods that he would replace them if they didn’t reopen the subs, so nearly every mod reopened and everything went back to normal. The CEO won easily without offering anything, and he was right when he said that ‘this too shall pass.’ Those third-party apps offered accessibility features for disabled people that Reddit still hasn’t implemented today. Now Reddit is getting even worse. How come there wasn’t a protest like that when they made even worse decisions?
I don’t think you realize how unrealistic it is to expect the entire userbase of Reddit to all collectively agree to get up and leave. Spez knew he didn’t have to worry about the impossible.
You don’t need the entire userbase or even close to the entire userbase. Just enough to make it lose more money then charging for the API. The shareholders are money driven.
Even that sizeable of a percentage would never been realistic. Spez knew this, and he was right.