I think this is a pretty naïve viewpoint - just look at what the mods of e.g. /r/iama announced today. On social network websites, the vast majority of people

I think this is a pretty naïve viewpoint - just look at what the mods of e.g. /r/iama announced today. On social network websites, the vast majority of people are only lurkers, a relatively few people commenting, even fewer people posting, and fewer people still who want to put in the effort to build up a community. Reddit's soul sits in those handcrafted small communities, the big ones sure will stay around and be popular, but there's lots of other places where one can get 5 second cat videos, and memes. This event eroded a lot of the remaining trust between moderators and the admins, and while that can feel like it's not relevant to normal users, over time this will cause fewer people to be interested in starting a community on Reddit.