Here's a list of powermods from some time ago:

I've checked the profiles of the top ones:

• u/greatyellowshark is still fairly active and hoarding new subreddits, as their mods are suspended. For example r/macro and r/psychedelicart. Almost likely didn't join the protest.
• u/guacamolefanatic seems inactive for the last month.
• u/alphabravogolftango is criticising the admins on never answering, and banning a porn sub because the admins are assumptive trash. Even then, still active and requesting the removal of the suspended top mod of another subreddit. I'm guessing that the mod doesn't agree with Reddit but felt like the protests were useless; but that's just a guess.
• u/Flair_Helper seems to have dropped it. Last activity a month ago.
• u/just-a-traveller joined the protests. And his last interactions with other users have been rather... "coarse", as if the mod was trying to piss them off.
• u/phooey640 apparently didn't join, and didn't care, and is still acting as usual.
• u/riverat627 apparently didn't join either. Still fairly active.
• u/awkwardtheturtle - banned. If Reddit did this in another circumstance I would've actually praised their decision.

Take the info above with a grain of salt given that I'm basing this off their profile activity. Errors are bound to happen.

At least I know the turtle got banned and started to say trash about everyone... Just clasic turtle. From the rest, I don't know

Answer: I am biased from reading through Turtles Ban thread, so I may not have the full picture. But for the most part BEFORE the major api protests they didn't moderate. They more or less set themselves as Managers and managed the moderation teams. They built org charts (with themselves near the tops) to ensure a chain of command where if someone wasn't being an active enough moderator, or disagreed with other moderation staff, they would remove and replace them. I imagine AFTER the api protests, some moderators were removed due to standing in Reddits way. Some, like turtle, could not stand to lose an ounce of Influence and began to seek ways to not lose their power - either by applying for moderator in places Reddit removed staff, and/or complying with Reddits general demands to break the protest.

Maybe another stupid question, but how does someone mod 50+ communities? I imagine a low-traffic sub would be easy, but a high-traffic one is bound to attract lots of a--holes who need comments deleted/banning/reporting, etc.

Is this a 24 hr/day gig? Do these mods have day jobs?

I guess my main questions are how do they do it, and why do they do it.