As another commenter said elsewhere, it’s more nuanced than that. It drives a bit of traffic in the short term, but people interested in the original content are forced to create new subreddits (which take significant time to gain momentum again). And the gag will eventually taper off and engagement will be lower. Overall, it’s a decent form of protest (given the blackout is being forcibly overturned), as it will likely lower the value of Reddit overall, hopefully nuking the potential IPO.

Though that doesn’t invalidate your second point. Kinda fun to watch a dumpster fire for a little while, though.