I really don't know what could kill Reddit at this point. It's so different now with Reddit's new UI, the awards, blocking VPN connections, and Reddit licensing user content for AI training. We saw how things went with the blackout and how so many people caved instantly and were willing to fill the roles of the people that left once subreddits were forced back open.
Maybe blocking NSFW content or requiring users to verify their age?
I don't think it will die, it will probably just fade into irrelevancy. They are hostile to their users, their creators and moderators. Literally the only things that give them value. It will become this fake hypercurated space, like those content pages that produce clean fake feelgood videos. When originality dies in a space it migrates elsewhere and you're left with a shell of unoriginal normie shit. Of all places instagram is popping off with original content and vibrant comment spaces.
I think the only way Reddit would truly become irrelevant is if a website that filtered content to users like Reddit does began to rival it like Lemmy for example. They kind of act like a unified login for multiple unique forum pages and it's a bit easier/simpler to sort than something like an XDA-Developer thread where you can have hundreds of pages of comments asking the same question. I feel like other sites that rely on users to follow other users or tags get too disorganized and everything kind of starts to blend in with each other.
This is obviously my personal opinion. I just don't see myself using something like Twitter or Instagram even when a majority of social media sites are trying to do and be everything at once.
Reddits search function sucked, so aside from subreddits and Google that site was pretty poorly organized. I always had a hard time finding content, or navigating archives.
I was referring to how threads are a little more bite sized on Reddit compared to the tech forums I used to spend time on. In an ideal situation stuff that didn't contribute to the conversation is also filtered out.
I do agree on Reddit's search function issue though. I would like it to be a modern version of Yahoo Answers without all the search engine optimization shit 80% of the web seems to be now.
The only place I've seen that still has some life and great energy is r/comics. If lemmy's version(s) of that group could attract the regular content creators I wouldn't have any other reason to visit reddit.