You make a good to point for people who might be unaware who the shared interests between imgur and reddit. A substantial amount of capital for Reddit and Imgur comes from the same shareholders, creating synergy effects for these shareholders. This means that if reddit could profit as a company by going against the interests of imgur, it might still not be desirable from a common investor standpoint to pursue such actions.

I worded it the way I did to make clear, that in fact Imgur is not a duaghter or direct corporate affiliate of reddit. If the two companies were part of a single corporate entity it would be less of a problem actually, if management was focused on furthering the interest of that single entity, as all shareholders would profit. However, if both companies represent two different entities, that might actually be competitors (which is definitely true to some extent regarding the picture sharing market) the interest of shareholders who are invested in both companies is prioritized compared to those who aren't. Treating companies with a few shared shareholders as one entity is not only morally wrong, but also legally questionable. So, saying the two companies are essentially the same business is rather dangerous.

To be clear, I'm not attacking you for your comment, because what you described is exactly how it practically appears. The issue is that the management should not treat it like that's the case. And one more thing, we are talking hypotheticals right now, based on educated assumptions, because we still lack proper information and context. These hypotheticals still can help explain certain company actions and lead to a better understanding of why and how companies do the things they do.