Something else to note. Reddits posting as it stands now will archive a post if it's six months or older meaning you can't upvote or downvote, or even respond with a comment to a post. So if what the author of your post is saying is true, that means the entities engaging in commenting affiliate links and then artificially inflating their comments karma with intent should be down to the moderators themselves.

One thing that I don't see taken into account is the number of moderators who's subreddits were forcibly taken over, or who lost significant and powerful moderation tools when the Reddit API Fiasco went down last June. This article paints all moderators with the same brush and given how reddit has cannibalized their ability to moderate appropriately, it remains unclear how much of this problem is down to the character of the moderators (love or hate them, because I am largely indifferent). Given the nature of moderation on most online communities, and the fact that it is usually volunteer based, is the question whether or not we should exclude reddit, or is it that we should change the way message boards and their media are regulated to better align with consumer protections? Shouldn't we be pushing for legislation that would punish the spread of misinformation? Or is that an overstep of government authority?

Also, reddit didn't become this behemoth of user generated reviews overnight, and neither will any other community. Becoming successful in the space is somewhat on Google but they are a profit driven company so basically if we (consumers) rely on them with no government oversight, only communities that can pay to play will show up in the results. That's a problem with Google and search engines just like it, not necessarily with reddit, though their misinformation train does bear some brunt of the blame for how this problem presents.

To be clear, since I don't think my meaning was clearly explained, I meant the the bar for entry on smaller forums outside of reddit. Reddit has generally had problems with high karma accounts bullying new accounts by taking advantage of the fact that new accounts are viewed (and have always been viewed) as less credible. But on private forums I was a part of in the early oughts and even the late 90's, there were problems with treating newcomers of any stripe with distrust. Every time I joined a new tech forum back then that was the case. It was used as an anti spam, anti-troll checks and balances sort of system. To build karma was to be allowed the benefit of interaction outside the use of upvotes or downvotes. While it might have been effective (in the same way the invite tokens or similar measures are) it was also very exclusive and sort of made me feel unwelcome in the space. Part of the reason reddit grew in popularity was because it doesn't have that unwelcoming feeling to the same extent because a lot of those measures just aren't in place.