[colonwqbang]

You're assuming that if Reddit decides to "fire" all mods of the top subreddits, there would be dozens of (suitable) people happily waiting to take their place. I don't think that's remotely the case.

> The top few are what make up the home page with a few others just sprinkled in. And again I highly doubt reddit would need to pay mods.

Reddit wouldn't exactly be Reddit if you reduce it to only /r/aww and five of the other most mainstream subreddits. If that's what you think will happen... Well I don't exactly disagree with you, but Reddit would be a very different product at that point.