I should begin by mentioning that I am (was) a moderator of three subreddits: one large subreddit, one NSFW subreddit and a medical-related subreddit. After u/spez's calamitous AMA, I joined Lemmy and haven't looked back. I am really enjoying the Lemmy/KBin vibe. It is very much an alpha (almost beta) product and the ad free, corporate free, decentralized nature of the fediverse has a thrill of its own.
Over the past couple of months, Reddit has done everything it can to show its moderators that they are low-value and easily replaceable. They've done this by removing technical tools, killing off third party applications, crippling API changes and jaw-droppingly bad public relations. Heavily used products like /r/toolbox are no longer being actively developed. When Reddit API implements a breaking, non-backwards compatible change, that tool will also die.
Yet the moderators of Reddit continue to moderate. They stay and help Reddit build Reddit. They continue to work for free; to allow Reddit to make money off of their work despite being abused. When I see things like the comment section on this post, I no longer feel sorry for the Reddit moderators still on the site. I see them as a sad, sorry group who cling to the false hope of a corporate turnaround. They could leave Reddit. They should leave Reddit.
These moderators are in an abusive relationship with Reddit, Inc. I might understand the argument, "we built this community, we can't just abandon it". But would you give the same advice to someone else in an abusive relationship? I get that the analogy between the mods and the corp is an imperfect one, yet it is similar enough to be valid, in my opinion.
Moderating is really hard. It is hard and thankless and never-ending. Finding good moderators who can handle the marathon nature of the gig is incredibly difficult. If Reddit moderators were to delete their moderating bots, downgrade their automod "code" and dial back their modding efforts to 5 min/week or less, it would materially hurt Reddit as a product.
The sunk-cost fallacy is a real thing. If the Reddit mods understood this, they'd take their talents elsewhere. But as long as they continue to help Reddit build Reddit, one shouldn't feel sorry for them.
They could leave. I did and I've never been happier.
I was a mod for r/games for years and never got a single perk. I must have been doing it wrong.
Should have been part of more controversial communities.
And you have any evidence to support this theory at all? You're just moving goalposts by going from mods of subreddits to mods of controversial subreddits specifically, and using an anecdote from one political sub that doesn't prove any sort of backdoor deal.
There are other people who have replied to this thread who have made similar claims. If you think this is some big CoNsPiRaCy then go watch some gadget reviewers kn YouTube who get inundated with offers for free stuff all so they can be featured on their channels. I would expect something similar is happening with the mod community. To think it isn't happening what with all the Shenanigans that go on in Reddit is rather naive.
I won't deny it is a possibility (there's nothing about it that's explicitly impossible), but surely if this was a widespread issue at the topmost subreddits, then there would be some leak that would have gotten out? Even recently, when that one powermod, awkwardturtle got banned, a private message between him and admins got released.
If something like that can be leaked to the public, then with the sheer number of moderators that would be "in on it" at least one would go rogue, posting some screenshot of this being the case. Either a correspondence with other moderators, or correspondence with other interest groups or corporations. Hell, with a mass exodus of mods, the chance of at least one mod turning coat on their fellow mods is absurdly high, if this is actually widespread.
Other people claiming the same theory isn't valid evidence and doesn't prove anything. If this issue is as present as you claim it is, the again, I'll believe it if I can see some evidence of that being the case. Until then, it is by definition a conspiracy theory, and just conjecture.