Good point. I think they could navigate around most of the trouble if they get some distance from the protest.
One of three things could happen:
Reddit buckles to unhappy investors (whom doubt Reddit brass has control) and actually hires a small group of moderators for subs with X million users or Y activity.
They slowly remove them one-by-one, replacing them with mods from other subs. e.g.- Contact the mods of r/(some other picture subreddit), sent them a DM, “We noticed your sub is very similar to r/Pics. To make the community blah blah, we’re trying to expand the mod teams of our most active subreddits. Would you be willing to help mod r/Pics some small amount, and in return we’ll help recruit more mods for r/(some other picture sub)?” Or they’ll frame it as a test strategy or test of new mod tools.
Same as #2, but quickly and all protest supporting mods at once. Take the PR hit, counter with “new tools”, ignore the backlash.
The hard part is their business model assumes free moderation. Adding labor in any form will change the valuation because it’s based on future revenue. Now they have a lot of ‘splainin’ for investors and no one knows what the company is worth. If they have to pay for moderation it’s an entirely different business so I don’t see them suddenly cutting checks for the good mods who remained.
Looks like they underestimated the way the backlash would manifest and now have to hold their nose and wait for the subs to re-build momentum naturally.
Oh, totally. I’m just saying that if all they want is to pump up the valuation to cash out, throw a small bunch of interns on mod jobs for a few months. They could make some statement that the “core” Reddit communities will have in house moderation assisting the volunteer mods, investors happy, value up.
Good point. I think they could navigate around most of the trouble if they get some distance from the protest.
One of three things could happen:
The hard part is their business model assumes free moderation. Adding labor in any form will change the valuation because it’s based on future revenue. Now they have a lot of ‘splainin’ for investors and no one knows what the company is worth. If they have to pay for moderation it’s an entirely different business so I don’t see them suddenly cutting checks for the good mods who remained.
Looks like they underestimated the way the backlash would manifest and now have to hold their nose and wait for the subs to re-build momentum naturally.
Oh, totally. I’m just saying that if all they want is to pump up the valuation to cash out, throw a small bunch of interns on mod jobs for a few months. They could make some statement that the “core” Reddit communities will have in house moderation assisting the volunteer mods, investors happy, value up.