The people invested in the community (or their vision of the community) enough to do that job for free, and do it well enough the community accepts it. I.e. people either not from the group I mentioned, or the least bad cases from it.
Right now (or at least before the blackout), you were looking at subreddits in a steady state. Some had excellent moderation, others less so. Users moved around according to their tastes, and as things settled, every subreddit ended having its own kind of flavor and quality level.
With the existing moderators leaving in protest and with Reddit shaking things up, everything is in flux again. It will take time for the worst, power/status-seeking mods to eventually get bored and drop out (thankfully Reddit isn't actually paying the mods, thus giving the bad ones little reason to stay), possibly destroying whatever subreddits they took over in the process.
The people invested in the community (or their vision of the community) enough to do that job for free, and do it well enough the community accepts it. I.e. people either not from the group I mentioned, or the least bad cases from it.
Right now (or at least before the blackout), you were looking at subreddits in a steady state. Some had excellent moderation, others less so. Users moved around according to their tastes, and as things settled, every subreddit ended having its own kind of flavor and quality level.
With the existing moderators leaving in protest and with Reddit shaking things up, everything is in flux again. It will take time for the worst, power/status-seeking mods to eventually get bored and drop out (thankfully Reddit isn't actually paying the mods, thus giving the bad ones little reason to stay), possibly destroying whatever subreddits they took over in the process.