Reddit has been a place for clever people to talk, but as it and its reputation grew, it started to attract not-so-clever people too. Cleverer people don't respond as well to advertising, so if you want to make more money from your users, you want more of the less intelligent ones, and fewer of the more intelligent ones.
The standardised comments you mention are a way for the less intelligent to participate, and the upvotes they attract reflect the numbers of these users. The ones you've mentioned sound like a case of aping one's betters; the ones I see most often are the vacuous 'Putin must be defenestrated' comments that litter the Ukraine war daily threads, and are the worst kind of performative virtue signalling.
Reddit as a loss-making assembly of communities is dying; Reddit as a profitable set of curated feeds, a sort of TikTok that's not just for short video, is rising.
I disagree that intelligent people don't buy things or respond to advertising. I would compromise and say that they respond to different kinds of advertising.
It is very insighful of you to point out that Reddit will be more profitable as a set of curated feeds.
The standardised comments you mention are a way for the less intelligent to participate, and the upvotes they attract reflect the numbers of these users. The ones you've mentioned sound like a case of aping one's betters; the ones I see most often are the vacuous 'Putin must be defenestrated' comments that litter the Ukraine war daily threads, and are the worst kind of performative virtue signalling.
Reddit as a loss-making assembly of communities is dying; Reddit as a profitable set of curated feeds, a sort of TikTok that's not just for short video, is rising.