Excerpt:
Most major subreddits show a decrease of between 50 and 90 percent in average daily posts and comments, when compared to a year ago. This suggests the problem is way fewer users, not the same number of users browsing less. The huge and universal dropoff also suggests that people left, either because of the changes or the protests, and they aren’t coming back.
Aww, yeah some people really hate the idea of “karma” because it’s just useless internet points, but early reddit knew what they were doing by adding them. It encourages engagement when monke brain sees number go up.
I say that it’s harmless fun.