This conversation reminds me of difficulties in real life politics, especially on the local level. Something that always struck me in how it's spoken about is that the preferences of the "lurkers" are often presented in opposition to the "active users", when the entire problem is that it's hard to tell what the mass of people want.
I suppose it's different here though. On Reddit, the lurkers can be assumed to be okay with the status quo, but in politics, people who don't vote or engage with politics may be the complete opposite
I think the landed gentry point sits poorly with me because many of the most committed mods (I mean the ones who actively put work into their communities, I'm not referring to the powermods collecting subs like General Grievous collecting lightsabres) put hours of work into curating and building a community. Reddit is built on so much volunteer labour and for Huffman to use phrases like "landed gentry" is outrageous