While I understand your viewpoint, I think you may be missing the larger picture.
The minority that is spamming the frontpage of Reddit is the content-creating minority. Most of Reddit is simply lurkers or users who do little more than consume content. This part of the community really doesn't care about the drama and just wants to enjoy the content on their favorite website. There is nothing wrong with that and every social website needs lurkers. In this sense, you and Ellen Pao are correct in stating that the majority of Reddit users are not in line with the vocal minority voicing anger and outrage over Reddit's management. However, the people that are in that vocal minority are upset because the issues that caused the protests are directly linked to moderation and content creation and thus, those that are upset are the mods and the content creators. Once the good mods and content creators leave Reddit, there will be little left for the lurking majority to look at aside from overused memes and reposts. This has already happened to some degree during other large debacles, which is why the content on Reddit can be a bit vapid at times-
In short, this is the proverbial "last straw." There will be an exodus of decent proportions for the next month or so while the content creators and mods find alternative sites to join and then a slow, trickling, loss of traffic will eventually kill Reddit entirely. The systems they designed to monetize Reddit have never worked and will only be less successful with a declining user-base. Reddit is dying, for sure. The only thing I can see actually changing this is Ellen Pao being fired.
My source for this is my own analysis and experience with Reddit. I am a mod of a smaller sub (~10k subscribers) and have seen first hand many of the gripes that fueled this debacle. I left and created accounts here and at Voat to get onboard while begins its decline.
While I understand your viewpoint, I think you may be missing the larger picture.
The minority that is spamming the frontpage of Reddit is the content-creating minority. Most of Reddit is simply lurkers or users who do little more than consume content. This part of the community really doesn't care about the drama and just wants to enjoy the content on their favorite website. There is nothing wrong with that and every social website needs lurkers. In this sense, you and Ellen Pao are correct in stating that the majority of Reddit users are not in line with the vocal minority voicing anger and outrage over Reddit's management. However, the people that are in that vocal minority are upset because the issues that caused the protests are directly linked to moderation and content creation and thus, those that are upset are the mods and the content creators. Once the good mods and content creators leave Reddit, there will be little left for the lurking majority to look at aside from overused memes and reposts. This has already happened to some degree during other large debacles, which is why the content on Reddit can be a bit vapid at times-
In short, this is the proverbial "last straw." There will be an exodus of decent proportions for the next month or so while the content creators and mods find alternative sites to join and then a slow, trickling, loss of traffic will eventually kill Reddit entirely. The systems they designed to monetize Reddit have never worked and will only be less successful with a declining user-base. Reddit is dying, for sure. The only thing I can see actually changing this is Ellen Pao being fired.
My source for this is my own analysis and experience with Reddit. I am a mod of a smaller sub (~10k subscribers) and have seen first hand many of the gripes that fueled this debacle. I left and created accounts here and at Voat to get onboard while begins its decline.