I went on Reddit yesterday for the first time since the strike, whilst trying to debug a code issue. Almost every post from years old questions had the replies deleted by the users. I think the real damage will be the deletion of content and the change in tone from redditors. Most useful discourse will be gone and it will turn into a place only for arguing, memes and shit posting. Advertisers aren't going to want to pay to advertise on low quality content like that.

I think most people knew it was pointless but 1. It looks bad if they don't try, especially if it turns out not to have imploded 2. It's good training of a real life rescue. These things don't happen very often so the more opportunity they have to practice in real life scenarios, the more they learn for when there is a chance of rescue.