Reddit is removing the Direct Message feature, and all active conversations will be archived so you won’t be able to continue ongoing conversations. Reddit also deleted all bad reviews for their app awhile ago. Its rating went from 3.4 to 4.5 stars overnight.
DMs are exactly what you expect, like private email. Every service has some form of this.
Reddit chat is real time, designed for shorter messages and real-time communication.
The other difference is that everybody uses Reddit DMs and nobody uses Reddit chat. I have my chat turned off as do most others that I talk to.
So this is yet again another example of Reddit management not reading the room and forcing the use of a system people generally don’t want.
Management didn’t miss the mark, they know everyone still on Reddit are easy marks.