You left out the moderators. Some of what they do is useful tending of communities, but some of what they do is provide free labor that addresses a hard problem.
Indeed, content moderation is the single hardest problem on the internet right now, and every big tech company is struggling with it. From Youtube to Twitch to Twitter to Facebook, etc. Reddit, while not perfect, has done relatively well, but as you mention it's all on the back of volunteer unpaid moderators. I'm surprised they haven't yet setup any sort of revenue sharing with large popular subs.
As a moderator of a decently sized sub (215k+ or so): we're suffering. I feel like its a lot of work and not a lot of support. We're not allowed to make any money off of it and the users just throw shit at us at every oportunity.
