That was the avatar NFTs: most people didn’t care, some jumped on the FOMO and paid through the nose to “catch them all”.

If they had opened that to 3rd party apps, even as a requirement to use the API, or better yet if they gave a cut to 3rd party apps, instead of blindly charging for the API, they could have got a great net to catch whales, while most people would just ignore it and keep contributing their time (mods) and content (comments).

Instead… well, this.

There used to be a special subreddit for people who brought Reddit Gold, nobody cared, it was essentially a joke, but people bought it in good faith to “support the servers” and “for the lulz” of gifting it around (…and then they killed that too 🤦).