That’s really all on Steve Huffman. He had years to prepare Reddit for profitability and an IPO. He was caught swimming naked when the proverbial music stopped, and he went for the low-hanging fruit (killing the costly API) with nothing but scorn for the dissenting voices.
The board should have fired him after the stealth edits debacle. This guy has no business being a CEO.
I haven’t nuked my account yet and will only do so once I am certain that all my comments are permanently deleted (some were missed due to a design limitation in the way Reddit finds them). But practically speaking, I am no longer using that account, so it is functionally equivalent to having deleted it.
I have no regret so far. Deleting my trail of crumbs has assuaged my fear of doxxing (which, in all honesty, is orthogonal to the API shutdown fiasco and was worth doing selectively anyway). It has also given me back time that I would spend mindlessly doomscrolling on Reddit. I am now more deliberate in my use of social media and the Fediverse, which is an improvement in my online habits. For that I am grateful.