"From the distant historical perspective of a 90s or 2000s forum moderator or avid user, the Reddit of today might sound like a pretty depressing destination..."

"... a link aggregator that replaced and flattened the web’s independent communities into a single template owned by one company. But place it next to the other places people started spending most of their time online in the 2010s and it looks like a civic institution in comparison. It may not be ideal, but Reddit is a place where people build spaces with shared norms to talk about stuff they want to talk about. It’s not the feed. The experience of feed-based social networks is primarily about the individual. In addition to endless streams of content, they provide their users with personal feedback and validation, or opportunities for notoriety or fame, in exchange for their contribution and engagement. Their most devoted users, whose presence helps keep others around, are driven to cultivate brands — to see their followers as customers — in all but explicit marketplaces for attention. Reddit’s most devoted users, however, are up to something a bit different...." 

From "Reddit and the End of Online ‘Community’ A standoff between the site and some of its most devoted users exposes an existential dilemma" (Intelligencer).

"But Reddit has always struggled to make money because its leadership seemed to understand that aggressive attempts to monetize would make its most active and valuable (and obsessive and defensive) users, the ones inclined to provide and filter and organize its content, less likely to feel like they’re there for each other, more cognizant of the firm that’s overseeing the whole operation, and more likely to see their contributions as unpaid labor for a corporation...."