I think the title speaks for itself.
EDIT: UPDATE: So apparently the former r/jailbait mod that is The CEO purged the sub’s mods and forced the sub to re-reopen under the old rules.
Mission failed! We’ll get them next time!
EDIT2: aaaaaaand the sub’s archived and no longer accepts new submissions. The garbage fire keeps going…
They don’t want to deal with the legal implications of it. Spez has said ad nauseum that they don’t want to risk 3PA providing NSFW content to users that Reddit is not allowed to serve because they don’t want to be held responsible for that. Especially now that some US states are requiring actual ID verification for 18+ content.
While Spez is a lying weasel, I don’t doubt that Reddit is worried about NSFW-related lawsuits, bad press, and ad revenue impact.
And, the next step after having control of the content is to further restrict it.
i would say that nsfw content as well as grey legal content was a big part of reddits appeal. Frome homemade porn to piracy and dnm how tos up to documentation of current wars filled with gore.
It felt like users were relatively well considered self responsible adults, unlike on other platforms.
Losing that is another loss of value. all the while nsfw bans are difficult to enforce without enough moderators.
Reddit could require some kind of verification on the account level and still allow 3rd party apps to work though. Seems like an excuse or they are just being lazy.