By reddit? No. By the users? No.

But they are paid.

You’d like to substantiate that? I’d love to have someone pull the curtain back and learn by whom, if that’s the case.

Many of them are using their subreddits for submarine promotion. Here's a public example: https://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/547wxd/comment/d...

There's much worse that's "pure speculation", because a few thousand unemployed losers that nonetheless have six figure incomes aren't suspicious at all. See the kerfuffle when the mod of r/antiwork went on Fox News, where several of the other power mods alluded to their true incomes and professions (they know what they are - PR people) when trying to boast about how they'd have done better.

Found on the front page today, an article about exactly this kind of "marketing" https://larslofgren.com/codesmith-reddit-reputation-attack/

I don't know about money, but they definitely get ego strokes.