The problem here is that most Reddit moderators care very much about the bad experience, because it makes their unpaid jobs more onerous. And Reddit can't function with moderators.
All the moderators are unpaid 'workers'. And their quality can be abhorrent to the extreme.
Basically reddit is the perfect example of getting people to contribute content and work for free. And when people are run off, so does your content and your moderators.
Reddit's moderator system isn't perfect, by a long shot. As with its voting systems, it's subject to abuse: calous moderation, power-tripping, and a lack of integrity, if not outright corruption. Reddit's own rules make ensuring quality moderation difficult -- admins cannot remove moderators unless they violate site rules. This leads to situations such as /r/xkcd being overtaken by a group of neo-nazi holocaust denying anti-semitic MRA promotors. Eventually resolved (see the subreddit's wiki for details).
But: Reddit absolutely relies on moderators. Which means that it's putting power in the hands of an unpaid workforce.
I actually find Reddit's moderation tools and systems pretty useful and better than most, though I manage only two small subs (each <300 subscribers)
So, no, individual Redditors may not individually care about the personal plights of moderators, much as you probably don't put much thought into the working conditions of the person who installed and adjusted the brakes of the car heading toward you. But you absolutely have a vested interest in the consequences of their work.
More on what does and doesn't work well at Reddit, from about a year ago:
It seems the one of the fundamental problems leading to this situation is that reddit moderation is unpaid yet requires large amounts of time. So anyone who becomes a 'big' moderator has to monetize their efforts externally, leading to communities being suspicious of the motives of any big moderator.
The problem is that Reddit's own features for moderators are abysmal. I don't know what Reddit's 2.000 employees are doing all day, but people have lamented that for years now without much significant change - and then Reddit just shut down the public API, which made moderation work muuuch more difficult.
Most of the reason Reddit works at all is because of the huge number of volunteers doing moderation because they're passionate about their sub. If Reddit had to pay for moderators they would be bankrupt in a very short time. And even if it did replace mods with its own people (whether paid or not) the quality of the sub will drop.
Replacing these volunteer moderators with paid moderators is obviously not in the cards, which can only mean Reddit wants to replace these volunteer moderators with other volunteer moderators. Assuming anyone volunteers in the first place.
Given that moderation is a thankless (and, in this case, unpaid) job, do you really think that many people with good intentions are stepping forward to take on that responsibility? Or is Reddit accidentally gonna recruit a bunch of trolls who turn r/apple into a hentai and piracy forum?
Reddit moderators are entitled to nothing.
They aren't altruistically providing some service for the common benefit, they're just sort of occupying the free real estate. Reddit moderators could all walk away from Reddit and that'd be perfectly fine with me, even if it meant that Reddit stopped existing entirely.
1/ Moderators aren't always aligned with the community (see recent /r/antiwork scandal).
2/ Reddit does not pay moderators for the labor they provide. Moderation is basically a job that takes hours of time and they profit off the backs of that free labor.
This is a non-issue most of the time. Outside of a few subreddits, reddit moderators are just random people, not reddit employees. It's all on them to moderate their subreddits however they want and up to the users to sit there and take it or do something about it.
That doesn't make it excusable, but it's not at all reddit's fault that it happens.
The notion of Reddit mods being selfless unpaid volunteers is misleading. They wield considerable power, and it's a desired position. Also, mods have been known to engage in payola and other deception for personal gain/profit. And too many arbitrary rules, too many shadow bans/deletions, etc.
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