Will this undermine most of what makes IAmA special? Probably. But Reddit leadership has all the funds they need to hire people to perform those extra tasks we formerly undertook as volunteer moderators, and we’d be happy to collaborate with them if they choose to do so.
I’m sure they don’t want to pay anybody, but I don’t think they need to worry about precedent. They can easily say some subs are strategicly important to the business and get support while others aren’t. Like other platforms have “partner” status that they only offer to some users not all.