Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t think Reddit needs any major feature other than search. When I search google, I basically append ‘Reddit’ to my query. It’s where all the real answers are, there are no more websites (who would have thought, the real rival to google is Reddit).
On the opposite side of that, why should Reddit make their search better if everyone already knows not to use it? Google works just fine. Spending the money to improve and code a new search function doesn’t gain them anything. They’d just lose money on the implementation.
Their presentation would have to model the behavior in a way that feels fresh, but the raw value of their content is already validated. The situation right now is that people’s muscle memory is tied to the verb ‘googling’.
Pushing ‘search.reddit.com’ will not appear different enough to people. They’d have to brand and present it uniquely. It’s a lot more ambitious than pushing their mobile Reddit app, so it’ll never happen.