The rise in interest rates and the end of easy VC money has swung the dial back to: Companies actually need to generate profit and not just show user growth to be attractive to investors.
I agree. The economy is shit right now and I would be amazed that anyone in their right mind would invest in a company whose already lost half their value in just a few years (at least, that's what I've heard. They supposedly went from 10B to 5.5B or something like that). And like you said, interest rates are a factor as well.
The mods are jumping ship or just straight up abandoning the site, and the slew of NSFW content, real or not, is damaging its advertisement potential. It's a lemon.
Eventually the IPO will ruin Reddit, as vulture capital will make sure to extract every single bit of value from the platform as profit. I just wish that Reddit's downfall happened before that - otherwise spez and other shareholders are still leaving with pockets full of money.
Also, it would be a shame if a blackout happened near the end of February... or if subreddits went again into "Oliverposting" mode... or if people happened to promote a few Kbin / Lemmy instances...