> Are people farming karma to later sell the accounts to shill products?

Yes.

Any self-respecting bot shiller knows their accounts need to look as genuine as possible. Broad subreddit use and commenting, harmless comments. Then whammy with the sponsored post when the time is right.

The more harmless the better. The more comment karma the better.

It's not Reddit pumping their numbers. They don't need to and after Elon's MAU crusade prior to buying Twitter they likely wouldn't want that kind of scrutiny when it comes to selling up.

I think Reddit will reinforce their user sign up pipeline in the short term to cut down on the bots. They'll have more data on it and I doubt any of it is good for them. They want real humans with cash to be posting popular comments, not bots.