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.
For smaller communities it probably matters less, but as soon as you break a certain point it becomes a fair bit of work, even with bots.
I like the idea of voting mods out, but I think the bar should be rather high. If 2/3 of the other mods want a top mod out, definitely out them. With the community it’s a bit harder because for smaller communities that can be gamed with bots.