Fuck /u/Spez
Sorry; the above is mandatory these days when talking about enshittified reddit.
I'd say it very strongly looks like Spez is doing exactly what it looks like. I can attest from my days as a meta-subreddit-mod and reddit mod that this behavior tracks exactly with any time Spez thinks he's planning an unpopular change; they pucker up hard and start bracing things they think will be affected.
Probably, it is Old.Reddit; because it likely does not add to their revenue. Old.reddit interface was not designed with advertising in mind and it is purely functional first only.
Of course; by editing or removing old.reddit interfaces; they will be lobotomizing their moderation teams. The new reddit interface provides far less control and granular information; making it difficult at times to moderate without falling back to the old.reddit interface.
Undoubtedly they will likely also try to freeze, disable, or cripple AutoModerator /config/ pages, if they haven't already, or revert them as well when this new enshittification masquerading as a "small positive change" drops. It's hard to say.
Instead of recognizing their moderators as major stakeholders who have chosen to build their communities on reddit; they have chosen violence, and are treating them like enslaved serfs. Hmm...I wonder if that means they could possibly be breaking modern slavery laws... Until Next Time!
https://media1.tenor.com/images/ce7115153e3ae261c59341f516a8ac81/tenor.gif
Fuck /u/Spez
Leave reddit now.
<3 Melody.
Keybase is better than Signal. You may not like it's current owners but it still works, still functions, and can be used to chat privately. It's entirely OSS on the client side; and server-side software isn't provided; but with an open Client; it's likely trivial to reverse and re-implement your own. (Keybase itself doesn't provide their server code; it's private due to abuse constraints)
Keybase is End to End Encrypted. It may not be as "feature rich" but all features are private.
I'm not sure if it's indev anymore though; and it does allow you to be as public or as private as you'd like to be about your identity.