[aeturnum]

A lot of the depends on if you think the moderator role is truly impactful in a meritocratic way where better work is rewarded with higher quality communities and content V.S. a largely rote role which involves correctly implementing the community rule set.

If the former is true, the moderators aren't really "replaceable" in that way. You can fire them, but the output of your product will suffer as a result. In that interpretation the moderators are actually some of the most important customers of Reddit - they produce quality content in return for free hosting and occasional assistance.

If the latter is true then you can just fire them and it doesn't matter...but it kind of seems like no one believes that? If Reddit really thought they could fire them they probably would have just done it? I don't know what the truth is but I think the former interpretation dominates thinking.

[germinalphrase]

“ If the former is true, the moderators aren't really "replaceable" in that way. You can fire them, but the output of your product will suffer as a result”

Sure - the cost would be higher, but is that cost actually higher than allowing insurgent moderators to retain control over very prominent subreddits and, presumably, shut them down? Doubtful. There’s no way Reddit would allow moderators to “take down” Reddit.

[aeturnum]

I mean, I think there have been plenty of examples of new moderation teams being able to kill popular subreddits. So I do think there's a good chance that the option is illusory. The subreddit will die if you piss off all of the moderators at the same time and it kind of doesn't matter if it's through a protest you won't listen to or by firing them.