To be clear: Are you suggesting SE pays money for the services that the community moderators are doing for free right now? Because in that case this move would

To be clear: Are you suggesting SE pays money for the services that the community moderators are doing for free right now? Because in that case this move would definitely be monumentally stupid. There's ~600 mods on the network right now, even at 1$ per day that's 200k a year (not to mention the impact of outsourcing this to people who don't give a damn). They have a fleet of voluntary moderators with best interests right now. They work for free. This is a shareholder's wet dream, and it's real. All it would take to keep this going is them not being so incredibly tone deaf and uncaring. The "aggressive moderation" that SO is criticized for is not even performed by the moderators that are resigning right now. It's performed by the community itself - moderators deal with the exceptional human behavior like spam, harassment, vote fraud etc.