This article looks at Reddit as a “comment economy.” Beneath the rhetoric of community and information sharing, the platform’s economic incentives favor conformity, reaction, endless engagement, and compulsive commenting over independent thought, meaningful discourse, and the exchange of knowledge.
Reddit’s revenue ultimately depends upon the creation of, extended attention to and the scrolling through of massive amounts of comments. This produces advertising opportunities, data value, repeat visits and valuable user engagement metrics.
The mods are obnoxious. And let’s face it, you have to be in order to want to be a mod for free.
I agree but probably for different reasons than you. I think reddit mods in general let too much slide and that’s why the site has filled with slop.