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.