We always talk about numbers and financials but in case of reddit I feel they have fundamental concern about how to capitalize the userbase and convert it into the revenue.
USP of reddit which is chaotic, equivocal, intelligent and freevoice userbase is itself their problem. On other platforms like Facebook and Instagram userbase is kind of shepherded so, meta can advertise and capitalize that userbase. They are basically kind of entertainment platform.
Problem with reddit userbase is we all are here because we could discuss freely without any external information being pushed from third party and could get and enter the unfiltered information. But if reddit or some external entity with reddits permission will try to advertise and capitalize this userbase and force biased information on us, we will agitate.
It's hard to advertise on this kind of platform and capitalize the userbase. There is only way to capitalize is selling information rights but Google is trying to kill it.
If reddit will cancel deal with google probably google won't be much affected because google has plenty of information on search to summarize and train, but reddit will lose it's visibility on google search, revenue and probably some future userbase too.
If google stop showing reddit in search index, I don't think people will change google search, it's more solid and fundamental than reddit. Loyal userbase like us don't need bridge of search engine to get the information, we come straight in the reddit, but the future userbase will have less probability of getting exposure to reddit and their accumulation will slow down. This dependency makes me worried.