[creesch]

Because for the past few years they have never been interested in actually being profitable in a sustainable way. They only worked towards “potential” profitability based on their huge user base as a signal towards potential investors.

Before all this, before an IPO was considered an option, they actually did try to make the platform sustainable for a while. I can't remember the details, but buying gold (and getting some perks) you supported reddit. They actively promoted this and even had a counter that showcased how much you contributed to server costs and all that. This is also the only time I remember that reddit reported numbers in the black.

They could easily have built further on this and increased income sustainably and slowly growing over time. But clearly at some point it was decided that this approach was not enough and that they needed more rapid growth and work towards an IPO. Which is the point where they massively scaled up their staff, started attracting investments and started working on the redesigned reddit. Which truly marked the beginning of the end.

Not to say that things were perfect before that, far from it, the platform had enough issues back then as well. But there was a very distinct and clear point where things still could have turned around and reddit would be a radically different platform from what it is today.