Reddit isn't the one doing it, although they're complicit and they know it's happening and they're potentially getting paid for it. People are farming karma to

Reddit isn't the one doing it, although they're complicit and they know it's happening and they're potentially getting paid for it. People are farming karma to sell accounts. Marketing and PR firms dominate reddit. Think of the site at it's peak, I'd say about 6 or 7 years ago was the end of it's plateau, how valuable would it have been to control the fan community for your book, show, movie franchise, sports team. What about if you're a product maker in a category, say you're REI and you want a presence on buy it for life. Political campaigns, everything, reddit was just such a huge target, easily manipulated and full of people who think they're talking to other humans. It was bound to happen. Of course just like SEO, it went too far and now it's uncanny, the site is in heavy decline due to this and you can go on most communities, they get one or two new posts a day and they're almost always botted to the top and PR/marketing.