Huffman isn't going to walk it back or he'd have done so during the Q+A. Like nobody doubts that mods are willing to take subs private, the move was telegraphed well in advance. Spez doesn't care, he's not going to back down on this change, that was the message from the Q+A last week and actually pushing the button doesn't change the status quo from last week.
They're gonna wait the 48 hours, lever open any major subs that stay closed, and move on with life. If mods leave en-masse there are "abandoned communities" procedures for new mods taking over or being inserted. There will always be someone willing to take on the work for the modicum of status and power it gives you. Some of those will be bad, and life will move on.
Don't mistake "terrible for the communities that have been built" with "terrible for reddit as a business", and yes you're probably also right that there is also "terrible for spez the person" in play here as well (there always is). Even if they lose 25% or 30% of the users turning it into Reddit-Shaped Tiktok, that may be more profitable for Reddit The Business than operating as a community platform. Because advertisers are, on the whole, willing to pay more than the average user, that's always been the thing about Facebook and Google and every other platform. Nobody's really paying for a Kagi subscription, in the grand scheme of things, that's a lot smaller revenue than Google selling Adwords and offering a free search service on the back of it.
But users have an emotional attachment to their posts and their community, and see it (rightly) as something they've built collectively and is being taken away from them. But that's not necessarily where the interests of Reddit The Business lay. Reddit-Shaped Tiktok probably is more profitable.
At the end of the day this is their platform, Spez is YCombinator and they're gonna chase the YC payday. You don't have to like it, but after the symbolic protest they are gonna clear the place out and get back to it.
If you want to build sustainable communities hosted by people who aren't chasing a payday, use Mastodon and Lemmy and Matrix, and not a Ycombinator platform or Facebook or other centralized service. Otherwise we're back here in another 2 years crying about how great Imgur Communities (idk) were before they cranked rates.
It is, of course, an ironic sentiment for YC, home of the “10,000x ROI or go home” mindset. Hypercapitalism is great up until it affects you personally, right? Very “bioshock”.
Tiktok bans leave a market gap for TikTok-Shaped Reddit and everybody in the industry wants to be the one to fill that gap. Spez is pivoting to profitability and 1000x revenue in classic YC style and people act like he’s grown a second head.