From a technical perspective, there's no reason they couldn't. God help me, part of me wants to see what would happen next if they did. There would certainly be some positive consequences to doing so (more of that sweet, sweet traffic, and establishing once and for all who is the daddy) but also some huge negative ones: for one thing, some already angry moderators would likely quit, and for another it would basically destroy any shred of remaining good will or feeling of community. It would be a slap in the face. They can still walk back their API pricing changes, they can even hope this bad press blows over, but I don't know if they could salvage their reputation if they just exerted autocratic control over their community-based platform. If moderators don't feel like they're in charge of their own subreddits, that they're just fungible, unpaid workers, they'd probably realize they're being used and go away.
reply