It makes a lot of sense when you think about it.
Twitter was valued at 44 Billion, prior to getting Elon’d. Reddit was a similarly gargantuan site (Arguably, the Big Four sites were Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and Reddit), so even if its’ users were famously worth the least of any users on major media sites, it being worth something in the lower billions checks out.
Sure. How much do the alternatives cost?
It’s all well and good to cry for getting rid of XYZ, but if there’s no good alternative (or in this case, cheap), it’s just not going to happen.