/r/pics was originally hidden, I think just because they were new comments. I check after a few hours and it was like 34k upvotes for john and like -8k on the return to normal comment.
If they replace the mods and add the ability to vote out mods like they said, community should just repeatedly vote out the scabs.
You can sell the scan data to certain merchants, price seems to depend on the amount of stuff on the planet.