Most reasoned answer.
I think the interesting thing to see will be how many people, like me, who used to post OC (mostly projects I've worked on, discussion topics, and what I thought were interesting articles) have stopped. I used to go into posts asking for help in areas I was knowledgeable, and provide assistance to newbies in the various hobby subreddits I subscribed to. None of that is happening anymore. I'm getting my memery from Lemmy and my discussion from Tildes now. Absolutely no reason to go to or interact with reddit at all.
No, I totally agree! A standard "happily ever after" would have been so boring. The ending we got gave context to why Ted was sharing the story with his kids. I was "surprised" at first, but really I think if people consider how the alternatives they wanted would have played out, it wouldn't have been meaningful.