But it's like nobody can tell what AoV is doing right now with the reddit sub.

We're deliberating on it. In any case, we do want to make all our subscribers aware of what is going on so they can move here or request approval - but that requires temporary unprivating.

But if AoV can just keep it private indefinitely and not mass invite us to it, then this site might as well become the new norm.

A mass invite is impractical, since that defeats the purpose of being private to begin with, and it will probably get us into trouble for unrequested messages to users.