That's Eric S Raymond (ESR) not Richard Stallman (RMS). ESR was an early and influencial voice in Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), advocating for a distinction between Open Source and Free Software, acknowledging the GNU Public License (GPL) would not work for all parties, some flexibility was need.
RMS is a GPL purist and against any form of compromise. Both made a huge impact and helped make the world and internet better. But they both contributed in very different ways.
How did it come to this?
Sounds to me like a feature, not a bug.
Without the FSF, we would not have Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Whatever his faults, RMS and the FSF were the pioneers who introduced the first free software license, the GNU Public License. All that followed built upon that first step.
Without the FSF, we would not have Linux. While Linus Torvalds started the kernel (what Linux really is) and he has since managed the direction and build of the Linux kernel, the Linux operating system could not exist without the GNU suite of user-land tools and libraries that form much of the foundation of the Linux operating system, which were made by RMS and the FSF.
Earnest question, what did the $30/year get you? I never gave them a penny out of my own pocket, didn't know why I would.
It's a win win. Either they don't go that, and lots of posts and comments say, "come join us here in the fediverse!", or they delete the posts and comments which still deprives reddit of our content for them use to make money.
Copy the text of your comments to here in the fediverse and link to them directly. (or, at least to your profile page)
I'm abandoning reddit in phases. I'm keeping RIF on my phone until June 30, but will not visit Reddit like I once did. I'm participating in the Fediverse instead, posting and commenting a lot more than I ever did in the old site.
Between here and June 30, I may peek at the front page as the situation develops, especially if any news posted here indicates dramatic developments.
One or two days before June 30, I'll edit all of my comments and posts to say I'm leaving reddit for good, while also providing links to the Fediverse and advice for other redditors to abandon the show and join us here.
One does not simply stop posting to joke threads!
This is just blatant appeasement!
No worries. It's all good. ๐