[bosse]

While it's true that some subreddit mods might not be the most qualified for the job, and may be in it for the ego boost or as a perception of entitlement, it's also important to remember that being a mod is not exactly a glamorous position - for many it has been a thankless janitorial role that involved dealing with spam and abuse on a continuous basis, with a very limited toolset available from Reddit to do this. The third party apps were the ones to introduce features that made the mod tasks much easier to handle efficiently. The official Reddit app got these capabilities much later.

If Reddit wants to force open protesting subreddits and find a way to recruit new mods to more than 7000 subreddits, then I assume this is within their right, it's their site after all.

[treis]

Most of the major subs are modded by people who get paid by advertisers and other promoters to astroturf support for whatever. It's not hard to replace them.

[jeltz]

You base that on exactly what? If anything this wide spread shutdown indicates that that is not the case.

[Eisenstein]

The major subs are not the reason reddit is so popular.