except of course that a) they told their users and b) they provide an excellent service for free so getting mad at them for needing to profit is more or less the same as getting mad at yourself for wanting reddit to still exist in five years edit: tag reddit please
You're mixing your provider here: Users provide excellent contents, plus selection to reddit. If reddit die, the next site getting the user base will be as good as them, because all the value is in the user-base. As it is for Myspace, pardon me... facebook.
Hmm, maybe. I didn't say provider, I said service. Someone has to pay for the servers, and yeah, someone always will -- but only because if you get big enough you can cash in on ad money. There's no light at the end of the tunnel, for anyone, if the users jump ship the moment their platform monetizes. Monetizing isn't inherently evil, it's life.