What baffles me: why do moderators still subject themselves to this?

It can't be Stockholm Syndrome: Reddit is not forcing them to be around. They are free to go and take their communities with them.

It can't be financial gain: Reddit is not paying these moderators.

It can't be the tech: their client is to this day unusable.

It can't be a lack of alternative: creating a Lemmy/Discourse/Flarum/NodeBB alterantive site is not trivial, but well within the reach of any sufficiently motivated user. Or people can set up a site with a managed provider for less than $20/month.

The more this type of crap happens, the harder it becomes to sympathize with the moderators and the more I am inclined to believe that the ones who are still there are truly just a bunch of people who are power tripping.

[dupe]

Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41698762

"Moderators will now have to submit a request if they want to switch their subreddit from public to private. Thousands of subreddits went private as part of last year’s protests."

Reddit hates all the people that make all the value their platform has