This post is full of teh drama, and pretty sophomoric, with the self-righteous conclusion...
The Miltz brothers learned the hard way that cheating Reddit doesn’t pay.
More like 'eventually stops paying.' If they were making $1.2m/month at the peak it seems reasonable to guess that they pulled in somewhere between $5 and $10 million over the two years of unhindered operation and resultant growth. Maybe more, but even if they only made $1 million that's a pretty nice payout for two people.
It's odd how the article totally ignores this in favor of the opportunity cost. To me it seems like gtwo8 and his brother made a small fortune without any incurring any legal problems, and learned enough to repeat the formula in some other context later.