I feel like maybe we are talking at cross purposes and possibly agree but that there is some misunderstanding over my original point.
Both of your articles are showing that going private and other tactics had a depressing effect on Reddit traffic, neither of these articles talk about pics and John Oliver, which is specifically what I was saying is ineffective. The articles are talking about the impact on traffic by subs going private, which means they do not come up in searches and they can’t run ads. I agree with the articles, hence why I said subs should go private/restricted/NSFW if they want to actually protest. In addition, users should consider not participating/mods should resign outside of specific cases such as NSFW abuse and highlighting the API changes.
From my earlier comment:
Anything short of private, restricted, or NSFW-abuse only serves to drive traffic for them and allows them to continue to serve ads.
discodoubloon