Reddit users and mods are not ´volunteers’. They’re consumers of a service.
If anything the ‘disguise of free money’ was only convincing consumers that internet platforms were a right and free to operate. Now the balance is shifting in the opposite way, operational profit.
It's a messageboard. The only people who need to think of users as "consumers" are Reddit execs hoping somebody will buy "reddit gold" or an NFT avatar. The mere fact that these e-trinkets are considered "products" should be indicative of how un-monetizable public messageboards are.
Nobody ever said internet platforms were free to operate. That's what the ads are for. Reddit is locking the doors because they had 10 years to build a competent ad product and failed.
If anything the ‘disguise of free money’ was only convincing consumers that internet platforms were a right and free to operate. Now the balance is shifting in the opposite way, operational profit.