Did I hallucinate several years of discourse about volunteer work on the internet should be paid? And that lefty types were yelling about how billionaire corps should compensate volunteer work because they clearly had money?

Something starting from Reddit mods?

Those conversations have definitely happened and while I have no clue what the lefty types settled on, in my opinion such internet volunteers should lose money.

I don't know if you read it but I've never heard such a thing and i do read the lefty sites sometimes.

Sometimes but I've never seen commenting counted as work.