I find it stunning that they’ve decided to go ahead with this. Why the need for a 2023 r/Place when there was 5 years between the first and second? What the hell?
Likely an attempt to show that the platform is still able to generate traffic and engagement, plus a really awful attempt of bread and circus. It's specially bad as people will use it against Reddit Inc. and the platform itself.
Because they are seeing the threat that places like Lemmy are providing to users. They need to draw people back to Reddit and distract from the protests that are still a topic.