> they can't just be easily supplanted by free alternatives as can moderators. That's an incredibly naive take. Do you think there is an abundance of moderator

> they can't just be easily supplanted by free alternatives as can moderators. That's an incredibly naive take. Do you think there is an abundance of moderators just waiting to fill the ranks? Several SE sites are struggling with a lack of moderators already. Similarly, there is no abundance of community members curating questions and answers. It's all volunteers, and it's not like there's a huge untapped pool that they can access on-demand. It's kinda like saying that the entire community can be easily replaced because it's free. No, the community is the business value! Lastly, the main anti-spam tool of the site (smokedetector-se.org - community-built and -hosted) is also offline as part of the strike. The tooling built by SE the site is in no way shape or form adequate for combating the amount of spam the site receives. Sure, it's not irreplaceable, but it's not "free".