Here's my take, I grabbed it from my reddit comment, it's slightly out of context so excuse that:
I do think reddit will continue to function, but its communities and services will undoubtedly begin to change following July 1st as users begin to shift to different platforms like Lemmy, Kbin, and Squabbles.
And don't think that as reddit aims for quarterly growth, they won't try to pull more shit on their users. It's only a matter of time before reddit is an amalgamation of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
RPAN probably failed because either nobody wanted to use their first party app, or were using old.reddit.com. RPAN was their first attempt at reddit trying to "catch the waves" of services like YouTube Shorts, TikTok, and Instagram Reels. The most recent r/place was the second attempt at getting people to use their mobile app.
Expect reddit to keep adding "trend catching" features over the next year or so while you're confined to reddit.com without RES, and reddits mobile app. Unfortunately, reddit will eventually it will be a shell of what reddit once was, and the users that choose to stay will be the ones willing to put up with their shit.
So yes, of course the point is to make money! Though it will almost always be poorly reflected on its users, and they'll go any length to make sure they're doing just enough to keep you here but not enough for you to want to leave. Users will make their decision to stay or leave over the coming months as you see this "enshiftification".
Here's a good article on this, it's very interesting:
I was elated when reddit announced they blocked 3rd party apps, gently but affirmingly guiding me to the ads. It always makes my day better to browse through some targeted ads with my content on the side, like a balanced breakfast meal. The dopamine rush I get from buying plastic objects off of Amazon is just too damn good. Thank god for these changes. Bless you, spez.