Lots of people say the mods are useless but they are honestly the main reason Reddit spaces were useful at all. It's easy to not have a mod team when there's only a few hundred people in a board, but "be nice" doesn't work with a million users.
Yeah mods were over hated on reddit. Large communities would go to shit without thwm. Sometimes they didn't always make the right decisions but ultimately large subreddits couldn't exist without them.
What incentives could be created to make that janitor work less thankless and more thankful? Their favorite 15" pizza - the toppings being in non-stingy portions - arriving every Friday at supper time by gig-worker delivery for the length of their tenure?