Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology...

 Whatever the reason for Taylor’s dismissal—the reasons remain unknown—the overall conflagration isn’t really about one well-liked employee but about problems that stem from Reddit’s dependency on free labor and its increasingly difficult relationship with those volunteers. Even if Reddit’s management had reopened the closed subreddits, it wouldn’t have had anyone to run them.  

In other words, firing Taylor lit the fuse of a very large pile of dynamite. With their submissions and comments, Reddit’s rank-and-file users effectively provide free content and labor to Reddit and parent company Advance Publications, in exchange for which they get no money, just reputation points and occasional Reddit Gold (not to be confused with real gold). Yet their efforts pale next to those of the volunteer moderators (“mods”), who act as sheriffs of individual “subreddits” like /r/IAmA, /r/science, and until recently /r/fatpeoplehate, the banning of which spurred a user revolt last month. Normally, it’s the mods who clamp down on the uprisings of the hoi polloi and stamp out profane comments, inappropriate images, and mass cross-subreddit invasions (“brigades”), a mostly thankless task for which they also receive zilch. This time, however, the mods themselves revolted, and their powers let them dofar more damage to Reddit than annoyed haters of fat people. The result makes evident the cracks in Reddit’s business model—and raises questions about how long the site can survive in its present structure.