I turned all the communities I modded private and "basically" quit but I understand not completely quitting without thinking about it for a long time. I only modded for like 30K redditors but some of the communitites have millions and they got there with the unseen moderation. Mods love their communities and it's really hard to just turn your back on them after you've cultivated real friendships and so much information has been shared. I think it's a little more complicated than, "F reddit, I'm out". They'll get there though, it's just become sooo much harder to actually mod the community you started.

Little bits of power go to people's heads. Seriously, that's the only reason you'd continue to do volunteer work while being threatened for doing so.

Reddit wouldn't have anyone to threat if every mod just quit all at once.

There are hundreds of even thousands, newbies would take time to train and they would probably have to hire and pay for replacements to get up and running quick enough

Because they aren’t really volunteers. They love the power they wield and would do anything to keep it.

The real volunteers already quit.

Have they not threatened the communities with scabs as well? Like "if you don't mod this, we will find someone who will". The whole thing just seems super toxic and I really feel for the mods who genuinely cared and cultivated their subreddits. A lot of time and effort to be put into something for it to be thrown in their face for the sake of money.

Yes, the mods who spent years building a community, who gave up their free time, and care about what they do don't have any self respect. /s

I really don't understand this attitude or why people call remaining mods power hungry as if the admins aren't doing anything wrong.

Because many subreddits are moderated by shills who are getting paid to nudge brand awareness and sentiment for $$$