It can go one of a few ways.
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Apart from the few subs that remain offline, it'll basically be back to normal. Those that do remain offline indefinitely just get forcibly reopened or recreated by admins, especially huge subreddits like /r/videos. Smaller ones just get redicted to /r/topicnew or some other creative name.
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A lot of subreddits and more importantly moderators and users leave the site permanently. In order for this to happen however, there'd have to be a consensus alternative, which there isn't ATM. Otherwise, these communities are pretty much lost forever unless the mods put a message to go to X alternative service in the "subreddit is private" banner. Tbh, I don't think people are gonna stomach losing years of their lives in an instant so they'll just re create subreddits unless the mods provide an alternative.
No matter what though, they're not backing down on the effective removal of the API (still leaving the sneaky clause "you can pay us if you want but it'll be a king's ransom" for AI, even though they can just trawl the web manually lol). They'll probably announce some crappy customization features to hoodwink those who don't know what an API is and lie to them and say it's "API v2" or whatever.
I just honestly don't know how it's going to shake out and I'm scared im going to lose these communities. I don't give a single solitary fuck about Reddit the company anymore, and I never did really. I just hope all of the subreddits find a new home and don't just shrug their shoulders and say "welp, guess that's it guys".
I think Reddit has in some parts already lost this fight. For one of my hobbies, simracing, I used a couple of subreddits to stay informed. Honestly, looking back, it was a mile wide but an inch deep. Basically the same 4 topics on rotation. It became stale months ago. Now, I haven't found a good Lemmy community for this. But forums. And it is night and day how much more in depth the discussion is there. Whatever reddit does, I won't come back. The last week has encouraged me to look for alternative content and I found better stuff. Sure, this is most likely different for other interests. But I can't be the only one that found alternatives to Reddit that he prefers, even ignoring API or blackout etc.
Same here. I've begun actively searching for communities forums, lemmy, etc that make me want to participate outside of lurking.
Your point about the depth of content/conversations is so true. The number of times you'd see the same post over and over again. Then dive into the comments for the top comments to be highly predictable copypasta or "unpopular" opinions that were actually super common made browsing very unenjoyable.
MIle wide but inch deep is a good descriptor of a lot of subs these days. For instance, Formula 1. 10-12 years ago when it was more of a niche community you had hardcore fans there with a rich knowledge of the history of the sport. As it grew in popularity the quality of the content decreased. These days there are threads reposting fashion photos of the drivers with hundreds or thousands of upvotes and comments, which ultimately don't mean anything. I can think of other subs where posters started sharing their fan art or creations and eventually everybody was doing it instead of having intelligent conversations.