You are not wrong, there can be (and I think it gels with his post) communities that have no management, communities that are successfully managed by someone who is paid by a private corporation, etc.
The word community isnt just a gathering of people.
I think the deeper point though is that this type of role can in fact have great power over the community, and that it is clear where the hand that feeds them is coming from.
For example:
In the SQL Server (MS) community, there are professionals that earn an "MVP" status, which is Microsoft's acknowledgement of the work and evangelism they have done in regards to the product.
Recently, a guy named Brent Ozar (an MVP) called Microsoft out on some bull they were pulling, moving features to enterprise edition and limiting RAM until you went to enterprise licensing (SQL 2014).
Plenty of people in the community of the same stature came out to warn him to be quiet, or to finally say something after someone with more weight brought up the issue.
This kind of community management automatically sets people's biases up to not only say what the corporation is doing is right; even if they personally think otherwise they avoid speaking out about it because they would lose this shiny medal.
I think the deeper point though is that this type of role can in fact have great power over the community, and that it is clear where the hand that feeds them is coming from.
For example: In the SQL Server (MS) community, there are professionals that earn an "MVP" status, which is Microsoft's acknowledgement of the work and evangelism they have done in regards to the product.
Recently, a guy named Brent Ozar (an MVP) called Microsoft out on some bull they were pulling, moving features to enterprise edition and limiting RAM until you went to enterprise licensing (SQL 2014).
Plenty of people in the community of the same stature came out to warn him to be quiet, or to finally say something after someone with more weight brought up the issue.
This kind of community management automatically sets people's biases up to not only say what the corporation is doing is right; even if they personally think otherwise they avoid speaking out about it because they would lose this shiny medal.