Good luck finding hundreds of new mods.

I don’t doubt they’ll have people lining up out the door to be mods… whether someone you picked with zero vetting because you’re in dire straits is going to be a good mod though is very doubtful.

I can see things going very sour if they choose to replace long standing mods.

> someone you picked with zero vetting

As opposed to the current state of affairs, where it is someone you didn't pick, also with zero vetting.

Reddit mods are causally picked by the users. If they don't tow the users' line you're looking at even more drama (there has already been tons of mod drama in the past). The slightest hint of power hungering is enough to set off a wildfire across the site, so anyone that is lining up is probably unqualified to begin with.

The current set of volunteer mods are by far Reddit's largest asset - especially on the major subs.

I suspect they're already moderating more subs than they lead on publicly. I see no way the big subs that have remained open aren't being moderated by someone on Reddit's payroll.

That means they'll let these subs go dark, claim they're unmoderated (even though they could take over them right now), and expand their internal moderation team.

I keep seeing this sentiment everywhere. There's absolutely zero support for it, whatsoever, other than that folks can't possibly imagine that most of reddit's value is built on the back of volunteers.

They can pay for it with their increased revenue from the new API pricing

/s

Are you kidding? There's no shortage of would-be petty tyrants willing to work for free to get a little taste of power. Insofar as the current mods think they're better than this, they're just getting high off their own farts.

Cheering for them to do that for r/nba already. Mods blacked out the sub on the last day of the NBA finals. Zero common sense.

Your anger is justified, but directed at the wrong people.

This is the entire point of the blackout, make reddit unusable to demonstrate that damage to reddit can be done if they don't change their plans.

I care about basketball, not about API costs and I don't find mod's job that much useful for aggregating daily threads on results and most recent NBA relevant tweets.

If basketball discussion is what you care about, then who cares if the discussion takes place on Reddit? Forums are a dime a dozen.

so you care about having a place to gather, to talk about your hobby and usually at the mods' effort to aggregate content (I assume since these are always the most upvoted and most commented threads on match day), but you don't find their job "that much useful"?

"I care about getting my $2 T-shirts, not about whether Walmart's employees can afford to pay for rent, food, and heat in the same week without relying on public assistance!"

Just because you don't appreciate the work that other human beings do doesn't mean that they deserve to be treated like shit, nor does it mean that when they stand up against greedy bastards who care neither about them, you, nor the product or service they're selling you should throw them to the wolves just because it inconveniences your life.

Reddit modding is a hobby, not a job you do to feed yourself, stop with drawing ridiculous strawmans.

what percentage of reddit users use apollo or another 3rd party app?

Depending on which post you look at somewhere between 1% - 6%. But, the more important question is which users use Apollo (or other 3rd party tools).

The answer overwhelmingly is mods and content creators, the most important people to Reddit's success.

That is precisely the point, hit 'em where it hurts.