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.
I feel like this is by design. Reddit never wanted to be a discussion board. It wants users to keep scrolling so they see more ads.
Oh, that is a good point actually. However, drop in comments is probably also associated with a drop in quality posts and the number of people who upvote them.