This is dangerously close to equivocating on "profit motive". "Profit", as actually used, is almost always meant in the strictly monetary sense, not as a synonym with "for a benefit", which is very broad. When the "benefit" becomes "I personally feel good about helping", comparing it to making money is inaccurate at best.
But more often it's useless. If you're trying to communicate with someone who's clearly not using the dictionary definition, it's probably only good for detangling their actual usage, aka meta-argument. In this case, certainly, you did not address the substance of their argument with your objection about the definition of "profit".
But you're going to "well actually" someone's comment based on the second definition when they're using the first, rather than actually communicate. Makes perfect sense.
I would still rather have a diverse ecosystem of power-tripping moderators than a few unavoidable ones, though. There would probably be more calm tidal pools like the one that dang cultivates here.
If the average community size was smaller, wouldn't the average 'power-tripping moderatos' within each community need to behave more strongly over fewer folks to maintain the same level of satisfaction?