Yeah Reddit dying would be a very bad thing. I do not like the actions of its CEO but the content is extremely helpful. There is so much knowledge archived on Reddit.
And about the API Pricing I'd argue it would be very similar to YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Netflix, ...
If a user pays monthly for premium, the company will get more money than it would get from that user relying on ads. And running an API costs you nothing extra since you need one anyway, when you want to have any App or website that is written somewhat well.
Ngl I thought you were sarcastic at first but I thank you for the kind of reply you gave. More often than not threads like this get heated very quickly 👍