Why aren’t chess.com moderators paid?

Be careful with what you wish for. You do not want this place to be flooded with even more alpha gen kids spawning countless "hi, what do you think of me?" posts.

Ok Boomer(respectfully)

Plenty more ppl use club forums and the like, instead of these

The chess.com forums aren't Facebook or Instagram - it's not like there's a mountain of posts they have to scan and review constantly during their shift: they're just being on when they're on and checking occasionally on what gets posted and stepping in if they need to. It would be hard to establish a rate for that sort of work and you're introducing all these administrative overheads like timesheets and bank account details and taxation.

Most people get involved because they want to help out and not for any sort of monetary reason.

Maybe they'll be running with the pack

Cos you don't give me my money

All you give is your sympathy

#27 i don't think any of the mods have complained about it, so why does it matter to you?

I would be moderator for free I don't see the issue with that .... They could always close the account if they wanted to and quit unless there is a corrupt policy(like in some companies )

@20

"It does not bring in any money"
++ It does, it scores the site higher in google searches and thus attracts customers.

If there were complaints from moderators, it's unlikely they would be in public areas unless it was from an ex-mod

theres never been a salary or wage for being moderator for any sort of forum. Discord, reddit, the list goes on, its not normal. It's not a proper job, you don't have a set amount of hours, and it's done in the comfort of your home usually.

The forums aren't the important part of chess.com. Its interface is, gamemodes, etc. programmers and the like are payed by chess.com, but normal forum mods won't get that because the service they're providing can be realistically done by anyone. 
Like someone else said, the chess.com mod team could band together and ask for a wage but they'll get rejected. its not worth paying someone to moderate the forums a few hours a day. you're not providing a service thats valuable enough that they would need to pay you for you to remain.

Technically, maybe, it marginally improves chess.com's SEO, but it doesn't matter. Chess.com comes first in almost all chess related searches in google and it has very little to do with their forums. These forums can be completely deleted and chess.com will still be on top. I am pretty sure they don't have a positive ROI on what they spend on maintaining the forums.

Not everything should be paid for think of moderating like charity just because chesso.com has employees doesn't mean there can't be "free" aspects to it not everything has to be paid for ont everything should .Should you get paid for leaving a review on a book or watching a YouTube video? If so everyone would be broke

Like others have commented not a huge admirer of a business expecting to be treated like a charity and have volunteers - its a little cheap IMHO. Some sort of benfits in kind , discounts on merchandise , gold plated membership and of course a coveted chess.com e- mail address .

Since part of what they do is mute and ban people, maybe it's better they don't get paid. It's more impartial that way.

they get paid with smiles