My assumption is that there won't be a mass exodus from Reddit, at least not one that materially affects Reddit's bottom line. People will grumble, but most of them will continue to go there as before. I'm just basing this off historical episodes of internet outrage.
For comparison, when Digg 2.0 came out, people just moved to Reddit immediately, they didn't complain about it on Digg, and vow to leave eventually. They just left and never looked back. I'm generalizing; of course there are counterexamples.
I think we've made an internet where there aren't a ton of viable competitors, so there is no easy path out. The choice is to either get the dopamine hit from the same place as before, or forego the dopamine hit altogether, and for a lot of people the answer is clear.
For comparison, when Digg 2.0 came out, people just moved to Reddit immediately, they didn't complain about it on Digg, and vow to leave eventually. They just left and never looked back. I'm generalizing; of course there are counterexamples.
I think we've made an internet where there aren't a ton of viable competitors, so there is no easy path out. The choice is to either get the dopamine hit from the same place as before, or forego the dopamine hit altogether, and for a lot of people the answer is clear.
I'd love to be wrong about this though.