Will this undermine most of what makes IAmA special? Probably. But Reddit leadership has all the funds they need to hire people to perform those extra tasks we formerly undertook as volunteer moderators, and we’d be happy to collaborate with them if they choose to do so.
I’m all for compensating moderators but I think it should come with additional oversight, vetting, and higher expectations. There are many terrific moderators out there who absolutely deserve to be compensated for their efforts. However, there have been too many instances of power hungry mods who have had a negative effect on a community.
Either hire mods as employees so that they have oversight from management or make it so mods can be voted out. There needs to be some level of accountability.
For smaller communities it probably matters less, but as soon as you break a certain point it becomes a fair bit of work, even with bots.
I like the idea of voting mods out, but I think the bar should be rather high. If 2/3 of the other mods want a top mod out, definitely out them. With the community it’s a bit harder because for smaller communities that can be gamed with bots.