A flood of children at the same time as an exodus of the type of users who actually upload good content to Reddit could definitely set up the conditions for a steady bleed of users away from the site, though. Especially with moderators' ability to actually do their job being impacted by the API changes.
Reddit protest plunges user engagement, site activity and ad portal visits (techcrunch.com)
Reddit protest by its community moderators has impacted user engagements, traffic and visits to its ad portal since its beginning on June 12.