But right now it’s bringing eyeballs to see the spectacle. To be effective these need to persist long past the point where it isn’t “fun” anymore.

Spez likely is looking at this and seeing:

1. He can make mods jump by threatening to move ownership of the subreddit
2. Numbers are up as people engage with this fad
3. Once users tire of this he can trot out the same threats and take over the subreddits anyway

Edit: just to make it clear I’m not saying I think this is fine for Reddit long term. I’ve just had this conversation with too many MBAs to not know this is how they’d look at all of this.

On the plus side if I ever need sexy pictures of John Oliver I know exactly where to go.