This token has no source of value except what Reddit allows it to be redeemed for within their platform.
Well to am extent I agree with you, the ecosystem is the community and if reddit does not foster that it will be worthless. However the fact is MOONs as the example are traded on 3rd party exchanges with an ETH pairing.
I'd bet they implement the ability to blacklist or freeze tokens like the major stablecoins do. And either way if the utility of these tokens depends on their use within the centralized platform of Reddit, that's a simple way to gate access and take them away effectively.
I agree this is a possibility, and it comes into what I have said in other comments about the token implementation. Though again with the example being MOONs I have not heard of this being an issue.
There's no way it does anything to protect against it. In fact it's basically guaranteed to go the same way; people spending money on future false promises from Reddit, and getting rugged.
It protects in the sense that I can trade my tokens with a 3rd part into another. However if Reddit kills tokens on the app then the value would be 0 making that void. I am not saying this is a perfect system, as with any crypto project the success comes from the developers and early users nurturing the ecosystem and driving the value.
I'm actually pro-crypto in general, but token speculation as a tacked on business model trends towards being pretty scammy just because of the incentives and how crypto token value works, basically always goes badly. There is no reason to believe this is or will be the "best system yet", it's worse than the old points system because the people buying will have some expectation of profit.
Me too, I've been in the space for a long time and seen my fair share of scams and BS, but through it all I still believe in the potential crypto has overall. Based of the MOONs this current system has legs in my opinion and can actually financially compensate otherwise unpaid moderators in popular subs for the hard work they do. As a concept this is good.
You scepticism is healthy, and more people need to have this attitude in crypto in general to stop the wild speculation you talk about however it doesn't mean we should dismiss good concepts out of turn. Give it a chance, I'm not saying it will be the best system yet just that it has potential, I don't want to let my overall feeling of what Reddit has done totally blind me to that.