Yes, that is the problem. The mods they have are far outside the political norm, which does not match their attempts to seek mainstream advertisers, which limits the success of the site and provides an entry point for a decent competitor.

Reddit has a large amount of video based subreddits. Videos, if you haven’t seen them before, are a mix of moving pictures and audio. When the audio doesn’t work, it does in fact make many videos unusable.

The ties between Reddit itself and the mods of any notable subreddit are stronger than you think.