I noticed the exact same thing. In the midst of the protests, it felt like reddit turned on the "AI comment bots" and then just let them run. I rarely saw ins

I noticed the exact same thing. In the midst of the protests, it felt like reddit turned on the "AI comment bots" and then just let them run. I rarely saw insightful comments or comments that aren't just repeated/reposted comments from the last time the link was posted. Reddit says "we did it" in response to the protest, but it really feels empty these last couple of months. This was almost as noticeable as during the 2016 election when the general sentiment of the site went from Pro-Sanders to Pro-Clinton, literally over night. The tinfoil hatters blame the Correct The Record group becoming active at that time. Along with the more recent changes of adding paid upvotes along with contributor rewards and then removing the ability to opt-out of ad-personalization, reddit management seems to have a one track mind. Profitability at the expense of anything, including the userbase.