Huffman has said, “We are not in the business of giving that [Reddit’s content] away for free.” That stance makes sense. But it also ignores the reality that all of Reddit’s content has been given to it for free by its millions of users. Further, it leaves aside the fact that the content has been orchestrated by its thousands of volunteer moderators.
touché
The real secret is that a smaller community is generally a better quality experience if you’re looking to interact with other members of the community.
Reddit isn’t trying to foster communities, it is trying to foster content farming so that the masses of casual users can just scroll and look at ads.