I think there’s always been a bit of an unspoken understanding between Reddit and its moderators: Reddit provides the platform; moderators get to run their communities as they see fit (as long as they’re not doing anything that gets Reddit in trouble). And with this framing, moderation didn’t feel like working for Reddit, it felt like working for your community. It was always seen as fair enough if Reddit makes back to money to pay for the platform they’re providing. It felt like wins all round: Reddit makes money, moderators get to have somewhere to maintain their communities and shape them as they see fit, users get communities they can join.

It’s only now that Reddit’s interfering with how moderators run their communities and interact with the platform that people are seeing it as working for Reddit. It doesn’t feel like a collaborative effort any more, but rather Reddit just wanting unpaid labourers. The unspoken agreement feels like it’s been broken. That doesn’t retroactively make all the moderation done in the past count as working for Reddit (even though Reddit obviously benefitted from it), but it does mean that any moderation going forward is something that should be viewed through that lens.