I'd agree that age by itself isn't a problem. It's the correlates. Younger people are more likely to be using the mobile app, where the engagement is lower quality. They are less likely to have completed their formal education, let alone to have attended college. They are more likely to practice an intolerant form of politics and activism, which makes discussion on certain subjects nearly impossible outside of niche subs.

> Both of these indicators of engagement are inherently flawed because they incentivize quantity over quality.

The karma system has other arguably worse side effects. It incentivizes people to downvote things they disagree with and upvote things they agree with. I'd wager many of Reddit's longtime users think this is the point of karma, rather than a signifier of a post's effort and/or quality.

I agree that the incentive structure needs to change if Reddit or any competitor can remain viable places for discussion.