The point is that it's distributed so no one instance can go power crazy and abuse a monopoly on the platform. If you want to keep using centralized services then the same cycle will happen again and again.
The comments suggest the API pricing was just a stunt to hide the fact that Reddit wanted to kill third party apps in general, and in particular the ability of third parties to use Reddit posts to train AI models.
That's not an option. Even if it was, reddit's tone deaf measures, such as undeleting accounts and threatening everyone and kicking out mods who protested, already killed the community and makes the decision of continuing to use Reddit as a questionable moral decision.
People seek a reddit alternative, and rewarding reddit for its bullshit stunts is not it.