[seydor]

It's not a scaling problem , it s a "reddit likes free labor" problem. They aren't going to give up on the small group of self-important idiots who named themselves mods 15 years ago and still havent quit, because they can't find new ones. No sane person will do such work for free in 2023

Trying to reason on the behavior of the mods is like arguing with the weather

[cmh89]

It's a little bit of A and a little bit of B. I first started using reddit slightly before the great Digg exodus. Back then all the subreddits were relatively small and a lot of them were great. It's reasonable to me that someone who was passionate about a hobby like hiking or bicycling, or even video games would want to volunteer their time to nurture a community they enjoy.

Now, there are very few 'mainstream' subreddits that are a reasonable size. You have to be in to a niche of a niche to find a good community. No reasonable person would volunteer their time or get enjoyment enough to wade through anonymous accounts yelling at each other on /r/politics or /r/pics. So you end up with a bunch of people who are willing to trade their time to feel like they have control over other people, and naturally they abuse it.

reddit is a shell of its former self and having professional moderators with clear and accountable rules would be a major step forward. reddit has always shirked accountability though in the pursuit of profit, so I don't really see it happening outside of a change in the law.

[BitwiseFool]

We know some power-users are paid to promote things by advertising agencies and other special interest groups. We know some PACs are active in trying to shape public opinion on Reddit. I wouldn't be surprised at all if some of the moderators, especially the "powermods", are earning a living based on payments by some of these groups.

[slfnflctd]

That is a popular opinion amongst redditors, and I find it a bit conspiracy-theory-ish. Shills doing anything potentially impactful are often easy to spot and tend to be called out on it or ignored. I expect there is some quid pro quo going on, but "earning a living" seems like a stretch (with maybe some very rare temporary exceptions in burgeoning frontiers).

More plausible is that there are lobbyists or employees of think tanks who use reddit as one small part of their overall efforts. There are likely a ton of failed attempts to make something go viral, with the occasional lucky success. I can't see the time investment usually being worth it for anyone actually looking at results.

Of course, for those with money to burn who are too lazy for followup, someone they employ could be making money as a 'reddit influencer', but I just don't see them accomplishing much. Throughout the history of post-agricultural civilization, there have been dead weight positions eagerly filled by those more interested in easy money than taking pride in their work. It's like a lottery for the ethically challenged, and what they do is ultimately of very little importance to the rest of us.

[pessimizer]

> Shills doing anything potentially impactful are often easy to spot and tend to be called out on it or ignored.

Not a chance. The easily spotted are the least likely to be shills, or are very new to it. If you know that people have been paid to infiltrate actual physical groups for years, in the UK literally having children with members of those groups, I'm not sure why you think it would be so much harder for a pseudonym to fool reddit visitors.

I'm more curious whether they mostly use off the shelf tools, or mostly their own tools developed in-house. We need a new post-2016 Snowden-style leak.

[peyton]

The entire site was seeded by and built on fake accounts. An extreme amount of content is fake. There are people who control thousands of accounts.

[mannyv]

What’s hilarious is the idea that Reddit users are worth influencing in any way shape or form. But I suppose once you roll up the niches you end up with a big number.

[johnnyanmac]

In a medium where clicks and views (no matter the quality of those views) results in money down the line, it doesn't really matter. Ads want eyeballs and reddit has a lot of eyeballs to be pitched with.