Are they running those bots to create a constant float of content? After all it is reddit who benefits the most from repost bots.
The goal would be to keep posting the same content which is known to create a lot of volume in term of comments and then create a custom API specially designed to train the AI's of their customers.
To me the Eldorado in term of monetization for Reddit is to sell reddit as a playfield for AI's, and for this you need a good API. Needless to say that I've overwritten all my comments before deleting them, I won't feed an AI.