That's the nature of entropy in any system, especially one where anyone can freely engage with it. I think it should be recognized that anything good will inevitably change, and by being aware of it, we can take steps to slow down the inevitable descent into chaos.
If anything, I do think the fediverse itself is a good set-up for preventing the sort of issues that Reddit eventually faced. It's almost like the internet itself. There's no centralization, only various participating end-points sharing and receiving data.
I agree. The economy is shit right now and I would be amazed that anyone in their right mind would invest in a company whose already lost half their value in just a few years (at least, that's what I've heard. They supposedly went from 10B to 5.5B or something like that). And like you said, interest rates are a factor as well.
The mods are jumping ship or just straight up abandoning the site, and the slew of NSFW content, real or not, is damaging its advertisement potential. It's a lemon.