I think people grossely overestimate what people did “for karma”.

Bots farm karma to seem like legitimate users and bypass min-karma rules.

Real users didn’t give a shit about the little karma number aside from the fact it told them their stuff got a lot of attention. It could have been a circle with a color gradient and people would have used it as a measure of success anyway.

People are still going to farm here because they want the attention, it doesn’t matter what the measure is (comment count, updoots wtv)