That's not what I'm saying. Their investors wouldn't tolerate that now, so the only way that reality could exist would be if they had never taken investment. Could a Reddit that never got into HN or never attracted investment, instead relying on grants and donations like Wikipedia, be what it is today? I'm not convinced.

Perhaps this could happen though, if they came up with a reasonable fund raiser to buy out that stake? $3B is all it takes :-)

https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/05/raiseit/