If the point is to convince other Redditors to pay for something scammy, who the hell parts with any amount of money on the basis of something posted on Reddit?
I know you jest, but pirates - real ones - were among the most honest people there was with one another. They were honest mainly because if they weren't, they quickly walked the plank.
Also, pirates shared the loot a lot more equally than modern capitalists share the wealth today, and they set up one of the first form of mutualised social security system in the world. You can read more about it in this article.
In short: I would trust Reddit pirates a lot more than I'll ever trust Reddit itself.
Gruyere alluded to me in uncertain language that they might have bribed me to not take down all their spam posts from r/Artisanvideos. I told them in no uncertain terms to fuck off and put their YouTube channel on the blacklist for the bot.
Edit: Also a crazy number of people including myself will go to Reddit for product recommendations.