this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2024
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Why would anyone do free work for a corporation to profit off of?
I used to be a mod at /r/soccer.
I used it when it was a wild-west shitshow full of the same old posts. I used it for a decade, and when they needed mods in my timezone I thought I'd use the time I was gifted thanks to COVID and redundancy to help out.
Most mods have very little power, and a lot of scrutiny if there are more than a few mods. It's just a queue you occasionally look at to see what has been reported, and you action it based on the rules.
Yes, you have described performing work. Many people do the same, but with emails, and get paid.
For 10ish mins a day? Sign me up to that job!
Out of interest, how do you see it as any different to being a mod on Lemmy?
Not OC but they’re just pointing out that one is free work for a corporation that just paid two people nearly $200 million off your back. Whereas Lemmy moderation is currently just volunteer work in the interest of community. Not saying people can’t profit off of community facilitation, but in that case their moderators are staff and should be treated as such.
The difference I see is that Lemmy mods have all the tools they want as they can code or request tools. Help the community for free and support something they love.
Meanwhile on Reddit, you cant have shit, get to see how greedy the ceo is and see your community crumble as more and more bots are coming afaik. The fact that they want to profit off of you makes you feel more like thats not right.
Perhaps right now, but the Reddit API had all the tools I needed to run scripts to stop spammers using their own scripts.
Just because you don't like Reddit, it doesn't mean you should devalue how people use their time.
On Reddit they're profiting off your work. On lemmy, we're all poor together!
Haha last time I checked, Reddit had never turned a profit.
While I do get your point, I think most mods see a connection to a community or subject, rather than the company that owns the platform. In my view, it's no worse than when people maintained DMOZ, or people that contribute to Wikipedia.
Especially when working for projects like Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap is way more rewarding
I moderated a mid sized sub for a while. Around 100k users. It was a hobby I was into and I figured may as well moderate because I was spending a lot of time on the sub anyways. It also let me put together some community events which were always fun. Once it stopped being fun and started feeling like a job, I left. I never really thought about it as doing free work for reddit and more helping community building for a hobby I had. People do it for all sorts of reasons. The "power mods" are really the issue.
I understand back when Reddit was small and before they killed all their good will, but I don't see why anyone would continue to be a mod now that Reddit has made it clear that they want to monetize their work.
Because there are still some great communities on Reddit that don't exist in the same way elsewhere.
They're paid in ego boosts. Unfortunately, it means that the types of mods that have hung on are largely the type that like to be paid in ego boosts.
Why would anyone invest in a corporation that doesn't pay it's workers who were also given the keys to parts of the business and can lock down sections of the business at any given moment.
Why would anyone invest in something so volatile.
It's only value will come when they finally make the announcement and launch the IPO ...... after that it will be worthless.