Reddit will continue to grow and change, and it will get worse and worse for longtime users who remember the earlier years. I’m happy to abandon ship now so that it’s no longer my problem at least.

Exactly how I feel. I don’t think this will have a huge effect on the overall number of people on Reddit, but I certainly do think it will have a large effect on the moderation quality, and overall content/discussion quality. Reddit is, and has been, on its way to joining the homogenized social media group, that a lot of us were on Reddit to avoid.