Will this undermine most of what makes IAmA special? Probably. But Reddit leadership has all the funds they need to hire people to perform those extra tasks we formerly undertook as volunteer moderators, and we'd be happy to collaborate with them if they choose to do so.
Reddit isn't ever going to pay anyone to mod a sub. They'll drag all of this out until the IPO and then sell off the whole site to the highest bidders who will probably scrap it all and turn it into a new TikTok app or something.
By that time Steve Huffman will be on a private beach somewhere not giving a single fuck about what happens to all the redditors who made him rich
They already do though, kind of. Their "Community Points" are an opt-in crypto shitcoin that the mods get a chunk of every month, and they're free to sell them to anyone willing to buy.
And there's always someone willing to buy, for some reason.
Just look at /r/cryptocurrency and their MOON token. Mods get something like $2000+ USD worth per month. I'm always surprised that 99% of reddit has never heard of them.
So you mean Reddit gives mods a bunch of worthless garbage, er I mean "moon tokens", and then it's up to the mods to convince someone else that it's worth something and trick them into buying it?
That just makes me even more glad I'm not there anymore lol
reddit doesn't seem to care too much since their ToS states that Community Points "have no value", but they clearly do when reddit modifies the price of their "Special Membership" based on the USD value of said tokens.
I always thought it'd be neat if some mainstream media outlet picked up on this and spread the news. reddit distributing shitcoins!