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That’s interesting and makes you wander why they are allowing that. My first reaction was Reddit would just turn every sub into bash gop faster but that’s fairly well entrenched all ready.
So it would seem to be less mod = more users = more profits
The commons already seem flawed enough in Reddit so less modding couldn’t possible make the commons worse.
This may be what Reddit wants, but it's not what the volunteer moderators want. The power mods wanted The_Donald gone because having a conservative community that large and influential on the platform meant a steady influx of right-wing users into other communities. This was referred to as "brigading", and the mods complained until the admins did something about it. Mods do not want vigorous discussion on their subreddits. They would much rather a circlejerk where all rulebreaking comments are already massively downvoted before a mod even gets there.
What Reddit wants is something they can sell to advertising companies. And when an ad appears in-line with user posts, it gives the impression that the people placing the ads endorsed the content. In fact, the way power-mods and anti-hate and pro-pozz groups managed to successfully get anti-evil involved is to get mainstream press (and thus advertisers) to know exactly the kind of things on Reddit. So the Marvel ad might be photographed next to /u/kikehater88’s post about blacks being used by Jews or something. This gets reported, and suddenly very important executives are having serious discussion with the ad buyers because that sort of thing makes them look bad. Reddit doesn’t want those kinds of user names, or that kind of content (or at least not in the open) so they can sell ads.
Keep in mind the axiom of social media if you’re not paying, you’re not the customer, you’re the product.
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But don’t moderators become nearly worthless if it’s just decided moderation leads to lower usage? Is there any reason to think left people would use the site less if The_Donald existed (instead of getting in fights and using it more).
I guess I’ve had enough subs ruined from usage from moderation to realize it significant shrinks my usage.
Well there is some level of labor required just to remove spam and enforce the actually important rules. Reddit won't be able to get volunteers to do it if their every decision is second-guessed by admins, and paying employees to do all that work would be both expensive and anti-creative.
The Reddit model is basically feudalism, which makes it inefficient and unreliable financially. You essentially have to steamroll over entrenched interests if you want to get money out of the thing.
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