I’m reading this as a play to allow communities to have their own paid for areas and Reddit takes a cut in exchange for hosting this.

I recall a while back they were looking at a way to financially compensate major contributors and moderators, so possibly this idea is being revisited in a way.

Right now though, most people contribute to communities to share their knowledge or creativity and to connect with others- and monetisation might be there in the background but isn’t a first class feature of the platform. It makes business sense to make this play, even though it’ll make the site worse.

To conclude: Reddit becomes an only fans competitor. Calling it now.