Operating costs are something I worry about a bit as a user. If there's nothing or nothing obvious enough, the site will just die because it will become too expensive. Surviving off donations for the sake of donations is possible, but it's hard. I mean, Wikipedia is a household name and it still has to beg for donations with massive, guilt tripping banners.
And Reddit Gold gave some perks I think perhaps from the start? I forget the exact details of what it was like when it was first introduced, but at the very least, its biggest usage was as basically a "super upvote". It wasn't just to donate to the site, but also to inform someone that a post or comment they made was really good. I think it may have also given a short period without ads?
Yeah. I kinda get it. It is a red flag and an obvious and agreeable answer. But oh jeeze it's so boring when every question even remotely along the same lines gets the same replies. I know there's always gonna be some people who are seeing it for the first time and that's okay, but there's kinda like a race to get to post that reply that will always get upvoted a ton even if it's not original or interesting.
One thing that's kinda depressing is how many Reddit threads would have some quippy pun as the top comment, then a few comments down might be some super insightful, interesting, and original comment. But it's not as easily digestible as a one line pun, so it isn't considered the best.