Mod tools were going to be made worse, sure, but what really drove up the frenzies masses was 3rd party apps. This is predicated by the app debacle, not the mod tools.

The app debacle is (again very rich) app developers who had margins of like 99.999% getting shut down. It's too bad. I use some of those apps. It's a shame Reddit wants them to be shut down or made relatively expensive.

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At the end of the day it's complete and utter nonsense that unpaid mods get to slam their fists in the pie because they don't like what the chef is doing.

They should have walked out. Leave Reddit unmoderated and let it go to the dogs (or force Reddit to actually have to gasp pay for mods).

Instead they decided that their will is ultimate because the de-facto person who becomes a Reddit moderator is not to be trusted with any sort of actual power.

It's a battle between Reddit and rich app developers. It had almost nothing to do with the mod tools comparatively.

The 3rd party apps aren't banned, they're just going from near infinity margins to still-very-good margins. But when you've spent years making millions for little to no cost, it's much easier to throw in the towel and then paint the guys who you built your moat on as the villains.

Years of content on interest specific subreddits and ages of communal knowledge locked away at the whims of some insanely tiny minority is indefensible.

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When people posted the content in the first place, there was an implicit assumption that the moderators wouldn't throw a tantrum and hide away their content.

And it's not like there weren't other options: they could have walked away. Left the subs unmoderated and make Reddit deal with the fallout.

Instead the moderators decided to craft extra powers by weaponizing access to content they didn't make.