The last major holdouts in the protest against Reddit’s API pricing relented, abandoning the so-called “John Oliver rules” which only allowed posts featuring the TV host. It's the official end of the battle. The Reddit protest is over, and Reddit won.
“the things that made Reddit Reddit years ago, before it turned into generic social media”
Bingo. From a financial standpoint reddit doesn’t care about how it used to be. Being generic social media is worth more money to them