Or they could hire the mods, like some other sides do? The mods here are regular users, which also means (by Reddits own terms and rules) that they can do whatever they want with their subs. That also means shutting or locking them down. If they were on the payroll, that would not be an option.

All companies depend on their customers, that's not a reddit only thing. If Coca-Cola pisses of their customers, they'll go to Pepsi in the blink of an eye.

sure, but they won't break all the vending machines

The analogy breaks down here because the users made their own vending machines.

For example I made this comment, and I am allowed to edit it or even remove it.

Imagine now for a second if hacker news was allowed to manipulate or modify user comments directly for profit.

It’s more like the users are the vending machines, and the cans, and the soda.

When your whole value is provided by the unpaid labor of the users, you don’t get to say, “How dare they!”, when you’re the leach.