Technology

Oh, I know the mods of larger mods tried to monetise but I thought that was more in allowing posts from advertisers to appear as grass roots and to silence other voices. I didn't realize they were being baited along with promises of payment.

Abusing your position to shill is fairly known by now but some mods would like something more formalised not to get their hands this dirty I think. Being a Reddit mod is a highly politicised thing because you’re usually at mercy of subreddit creator or loudest people in a community. The consequence is that there are many mods that are there not based on merit. I always thought some people were mods just to brag about about being a mod but curiously enough they always became quite active when it came to advancing their status or making money.

As to how Reddit carrot dangling looks like in practice - I was modding a national sub in a country that didn’t have established Reddit presence so sometimes there’d be official communication that they would hire someone to keep someone culturally in the know for things like translations on staff for example. That never panned out as far as I know although I left around that time so maybe it changed. There are also those Mod Summit events that are kind of like corporate onboarding and where they announce where Reddit is going, sneak peek of things that are coming etc. I was to three of those and it was always either heavily implied or said outright that there would be a way to make money off communities officially. That also never happened. Just ways to keep your unpaid labour engaged :P