I think Reddit being down for 2 days is worse for them than a bunch of protest messages, plus, if Reddit is actually dead for 48 hours, the subreddits can just extend “going private” for however long they need to.

Unlikely, but I’m hoping it’s a rogue Reddit admin/dev who doesn’t agree with the changes, and has taken the site down in solidarity.

More likely, the Reddit admins tried to reopen all the private subs in one go, and fucked something up along the way. Or, they needed to bring Reddit down temporarily while they “fix” everything in a batch.