Reddit's value as a social media platform drops as it's value to advertisers rises. The karma system is democratic, the userbase shapes the visual content on the site, that's was makes it useful. The more mutilated it becomes in service of extracting money from advertising, the less genuine it is, and the less people will seek to use it.

Spez would like to believe Reddit is a cow that can be milked forever.

In reality Reddit is a pig that Spez seems to believe he can get bacon from forever. Except to get that bacon, you have to kill it, and you can only do that once.