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The original was posted on /r/modcoord by /u/millieismillie on 2023-06-26 00:29:06+00:00.

This has been banging around in my head for a few days, and it really bugs me that this is being framed this way.

The problem with landed gentry in reality is the limited amount of space and resources there are to go around. Land ownership is ultimately a zero sum game when you’re talking about exclusive rights. Everybody may in some sense have a claim on public land, but even there usage is limited by things like regulations and zoning laws.

In the case of subreddits, no such limitations exist. There’s as close to zero barrier for entry as you can get, while no upper limit to the total number of subreddits exists.

To open and run a subreddit is not to deny anyone anything. Users can easily create a new subreddit that better suits their purposes, and frequently do. Nothing is stopping anyone from taking the time out of their own lives to make a subreddit and join the ‘landed gentry’.

But what does deny others something is this bait and switch. Telling people for years that they can run their communities however they like and then stepping in to micromanage and having the audacity to point the finger at the free labor that made their platform successful.

Taking choices away from content creators and community managers and acting like they did nothing to be in a position to make those choices is incredibly myopic.