Reddit is the vehicle - a mere tool - people use to help build community around an interest - before Reddit, it was yahoo groups, or you had to go host your own forum somewhere.
So while yes, Reddit benefits from their work and content, keeping reddit sustainably funded also keeps alive all of those communities.
Most of reddit is controlled by "powermods" who mod anywhere from dozens to hundreds of subreddits. They collect them for clout and don't give the slightest damn about their communities, don't participate in them, don't have time to even spend time reading them and getting a feel for them, etc. They're not trained or educated in community management for the betterment of said community.
Nobody has the sort of free time to spend moderating an active community, especially unpaid - and therefore they must be getting paid by someone other than reddit. I'm convinced that a large number of subreddits are moderated by accounts that are controlled, directly or indirectly, by advertising, PR, and reputation management firms - and government agencies, ranging from intelligence to "PR." Either directly, or via payoffs to promote or suppress certain subjects, topics, and types of posts.
I think there's a reason Ghislaine Maxwell - whose father was an intelligence agent - was a reddit powermod.
Most volunteers for any organization are neither trained or educated in the thing they're volunteering to do, thats why they're volunteers and not paid labor. As soon as you start putting requirements for compliance training or whathaveyou on volunteers, they start needing to be paid.
I imagine you're going to get a very different type of person moderating if they have a monetary incentive to do so. I don't disagree with your argument in the broad sense—the rich get richer at the expense of everyone else, and they shouldn't—but adding money to a relationship that doesn't have it always fundamentally changes the relationship, and the incentive structure, and it doesn't guarantee better outcomes.
I have an application to the LinkedIn group of ex-Oracle employees. It was ignored for months and months.
Finally, I wrote to one of the admins. He apologized and said he had a lot of groups he was admin for, and asked, now which group was I talking about, again?
I moderate communities on telegram, I already have people who treat me and my mod team like we are being paid, and this is our full-time job, and we should be more responsive to their concerns. I wouldnt want to be actually paid and have an expectation of quality of service.
Reddit is the vehicle - a mere tool - people use to help build community around an interest - before Reddit, it was yahoo groups, or you had to go host your own forum somewhere.
So while yes, Reddit benefits from their work and content, keeping reddit sustainably funded also keeps alive all of those communities.