Yes, but it's reddit monetizing, not the users. The users can be astroturfing, but there's no point astroturfing some types of content like game guides I hope.
Some users monetize it by selling their karma rich accounts to those astrosurfers you mentioned - or to spammers.
They currently manufacture these karma rich accounts by reposting popular posts and comments. LLMs will soon be (or already are) another way to karma farm.
