It's interesting seeing this situation play out across different subreddits. There seems to be 2 kinds of subreddits - the "category" kind (simple, descriptive name) and the "community" kind (have a defined purpose, could exist under a whole range of names)
The moderators of all of them see themselves as somehow owning the community, but I think that's less clear to the users. To most users, r/Celebrities is a category of posts about celebrities. They don't really care who moderates it. It's a similar situation for things like region/city specific subreddits. The users don't really care about the culture, they just want someone to delete the spam. When the moderators start shutting it down, or threatening to move the community elsewhere, the users mostly end up thinking "who elected you anyway?"
The community subreddits are different - they often have a much more defined culture and purpose. Those are the ones which, if the moderators give up, will die. It seems like Reddit is betting that most subreddits are the category kind - and they're probably right. But the community subreddits are likely to be lost.
The moderators of all of them see themselves as somehow owning the community, but I think that's less clear to the users. To most users, r/Celebrities is a category of posts about celebrities. They don't really care who moderates it. It's a similar situation for things like region/city specific subreddits. The users don't really care about the culture, they just want someone to delete the spam. When the moderators start shutting it down, or threatening to move the community elsewhere, the users mostly end up thinking "who elected you anyway?"
The community subreddits are different - they often have a much more defined culture and purpose. Those are the ones which, if the moderators give up, will die. It seems like Reddit is betting that most subreddits are the category kind - and they're probably right. But the community subreddits are likely to be lost.