Short term, I agree with you. Long term, for me it's a virtual certainty that Huffman is fired as CEO of Reddit within one year of an IPO. At that point, the community and content may have deteriorated so much that a new CEO sees value in re-opening the API and third-party apps, probably with some kind of revenue share/ad delivery aspect, and maybe with a (sensible) fee for the biggest users.
Short term, I agree with you. Long term, for me it's a virtual certainty that Huffman is fired as CEO of Reddit within one year of an IPO. At that point, the community and content may have deteriorated so much that a new CEO sees value in re-opening the API and third-party apps, probably with some kind of revenue share/ad delivery aspect, and maybe with a (sensible) fee for the biggest users.
EDIT: having just discovered Manifold Markets (thanks @lixus98 !) I've created a market for this: https://manifold.markets/IE/will-steve-huffman-be-fired-or-resi