Reddit management is somewhat between a rock and a hard place. They have a very free-for-all culture now, with the norms of the site driven largely by the community. As expected, these norms do not drive a lot of monetization -- the community is not constantly pushing for ways to make Reddit profitable. So management is trying to wrest control over the huge community in order to take it towards some more profitable territory, but at least to date they don't seem to be able to do so in a way that doesn't trigger a strong immune response.