That Reddit will not shut down. It will take the hit and go on and probably make at least some money. Only, it will be a much different place, more like Facebook or Instagram, in that it will be full of ads and less specific information.
It will cease to be a different, often niche space and become just another, more generalized social for a more generalized public.
In short: we, aka the people who migrated, simply are not their intended target anymore.
On the subject, I found @gonzo0815 's post very interesting and more detailed than my summary😅 (link https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/25185/A-few-thoughts-about-the-blackout-and-the-future-development)
Let’s not poison ourself, thinking on “how to make them pay”. Let’s move on, and enjoy the new internet spaces we are building!
Of course it won’t shut down.
Reddit can remove the mods of any sub at any time and simply open the subs back up. They are allowing them to remain shut now as a PR move because it’s a worse look if they take them back by force. But make no mistake - that’s what will happen in the long run.
The thing that is really going to hurt Reddit in the long run is that all of the Reddit links on Google are “breaking” - if someone searches something and a Reddit post comes up as a result, there is about a 7/10 chance that the sub is private and the post isn’t visible. This will hurt Reddit badly in the long run because Google will remove these results if they stay that way for, say 2 - 3 weeks. Then Reddit loses the ad revenue and new user capture they were getting from organic Google traffic. They can’t simply get that back by reopening the subs, either - once those pages are downranked on Google, it will be difficult for them to rebuild the traction to get a high listing. Some have been there for 10+ years.