My suspicion is, reddit leadership wants to cash in even more on the smartphone addiction - hence the ongoing tiktokification through r/all and the heavy push to control the UX (first by promoting the app, now by locking out 3rd-party clients).
From the UI changes and priorities I've seen so far, I wouldn't be surprised if the endgame is to just have a tiktok-like stream with a mix of cat pictures, cyclically repeated rage-inducer questions from r/askreddit, r/amitheasshole or r/relationship_advice, mixed with some tabloid news and shitposts/memes.
Never mind the quality of the content as long as you have eyeballs.
For that you don't need any actual communities either.
From the UI changes and priorities I've seen so far, I wouldn't be surprised if the endgame is to just have a tiktok-like stream with a mix of cat pictures, cyclically repeated rage-inducer questions from r/askreddit, r/amitheasshole or r/relationship_advice, mixed with some tabloid news and shitposts/memes.
Never mind the quality of the content as long as you have eyeballs.
For that you don't need any actual communities either.