I am fairly certain they still use "fake" submissions (and paid users) to great effect.
Recently a user "karmanaut" was exposed as systematically taking the highest-ranking comment of a previous picture submission and adding it to the picture when it was resubmitted (resubmissions on reddit are fairly common, yet they do make the frontpage again and again). It was clearly done with the help of a bot. The moderators initially deleted the thread that pointed to his shenanigans.
A lot of front page submissions originate from the same dozen-or-so people who are apparently on reddit all day long. I would not be surprised if - just like owners of YouTube channels - there are content creators in reddit that get paid as such.
Recently a user "karmanaut" was exposed as systematically taking the highest-ranking comment of a previous picture submission and adding it to the picture when it was resubmitted (resubmissions on reddit are fairly common, yet they do make the frontpage again and again). It was clearly done with the help of a bot. The moderators initially deleted the thread that pointed to his shenanigans.
A lot of front page submissions originate from the same dozen-or-so people who are apparently on reddit all day long. I would not be surprised if - just like owners of YouTube channels - there are content creators in reddit that get paid as such.
If it works, it works.