Short term thinking: apps cost us a lot of money per year, let's claw some of that cost back.
Long term thinking: hiring enough people to moderate all of the popular subs that will now have no moderators will cost us tens of millions of dollars over future years just in salaries, not to mention more IT ops, HR and the other stuff that comes with growing a headcount.
It's going to be really sad to see Reddit collapse under its own stupidity :(
The old adage I learned when I first got into photography (that I've only just started following) is that if you have $5000 to spend, spend $1000 on camera gear and $4000 on plane tickets. You'll end up with my better photos that way.