4 ms·

4chan is running out of money

27 points by r721 10y ago

stirner 10y ago
Nishimura is the founder of 2channel, the Japanese website than 4chan began as a direct clone of. He is known for doing sketchy stuff in order to make a buck, and when he bought 4chan, many users speculated that he would mess with the site in some way to make a profit. I don't think anyone expected him to flat-out suggest malicious ads to his users, though.
- EE84M3i 10y ago
  It's possible that this could be the "end of 4chan as we know it" (although, many have worried about such things before and it's never really come to fruition). moot was always very honest though about the options available to him, and it seems Nishimura is doing the same.
- ezoe 10y ago
  >Nishimura is the founder of 2channel, the Japanese website than 4chan began as a direct clone of. No. Amezou(person) started the Amezou. Nisimura Hiroyuki cloned Amezou and started 2ch. Then, nameless person cloned 2ch and started Futaba channel. 4chan cloned from Futaba channel.
castratikron 10y ago
4chan is a phenomenon. It's the complete antithesis to centralized, regulated public forums like Facebook that demand all information about your identity and keep permanent records on everything you've ever said and done. It's the last vestige of pre-"Web 2.0". While there have been countless horrors that have arisen from 4chan, part of me would be sad to see it go. Most of the Internet culture of the last decade has been defined by 4chan. Would a switch to a distributed model of hosting have any chance of working? Chan@Home? I'd imagine the latency would be a lot higher, and it'd probably be ever harder to moderate than it is now.
- dalke 10y ago
  4chan depend on a central server, which is why lack of funding can cause a failure. Usenet/netnews is the complete antithesis to centralized forums.
thanatropism 10y ago
The king is gone, but not forgotten this is the story of Johnny Rotten it's better to burn out than to fade away...
MollyR 10y ago
I thought there were a bunch of "chans". Won't the others just replace 4chan in user share?
- resfirestar 10y ago
  >Won't the others just replace 4chan in user share? Due to its position as the nexus of "internet culture" for at least a few years in the late 2000s, 4chan is very special. It is one of two major general purpose chans (the other being 8chan). All other chans, including 8chan, define themselves along the lines of "4chan but...", "4chan without...", "4chan with...", or similar. And if they don't now, they started that way. 8chan is the only one that has gained and kept a large enough dedicated userbase for significant content and memes with broad appeal to originate from there. This is a unique consequence of its origin. Most living alt chans are specialized supplements to 4chan (the "4chan with..." category), and make no apologies for it. Many 4chan regulars frequent one or two: I enjoy cyberpunk literature and content, there's a chan for that. Some people hate the lack of a board dedicated to drugs, there's a chan for that. But most still go to 4chan, at least nostalgically, often in search of a long-gone "board culture" that we loved years ago. And 4chan remains the single point where chan culture blends, posting style is standardized, and memes catch fire. 8chan was not born as a supplement to 4chan. Like many failed chans, it was created when 4chan moderators did, or were perceived to be doing or planning, something to anger users. But 8chan and the controversy that popularized it were different. Usually moot's missteps become jokes. GamerGate convinced a significant number of people (more precisely, a subset of white male teenagers, henceforth "gators") that there really was a vast conspiracy to indoctrinate the youth using video games. 4chan's moderators were judged to be part of the media element of that conspiracy. From that point, 4chan permanently lost the trust and loyalty of gators. They went to 8chan, closely followed by far-right goons who take /pol/ very seriously and would become inconsolable when moot did routine pranks like background music or wacky CSS. Somehow this was a diverse enough group (in interests, not background) to put 8chan in direct competition with 4chan. If 4chan folds, I predict 8chan alone will get the bulk of the users unless a direct spiritual successor emerges. Board closures probably wouldn't matter to users, neither would ads or upload limits. It's more a question of whether those measures would actually solve the money problem.
r721 10y ago
Another discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12635999 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12635999

27 points by r721 10y ago

Nishimura is the founder of 2channel, the Japanese website than 4chan began as a direct clone of. He is known for doing sketchy stuff in order to make a buck, and when he bought 4chan, many users speculated that he would mess with the site in some way to make a profit. I don't think anyone expected him to flat-out suggest malicious ads to his users, though.

EE84M3i 10y ago
It's possible that this could be the "end of 4chan as we know it" (although, many have worried about such things before and it's never really come to fruition). moot was always very honest though about the options available to him, and it seems Nishimura is doing the same.
ezoe 10y ago
>Nishimura is the founder of 2channel, the Japanese website than 4chan began as a direct clone of. No. Amezou(person) started the Amezou. Nisimura Hiroyuki cloned Amezou and started 2ch. Then, nameless person cloned 2ch and started Futaba channel. 4chan cloned from Futaba channel.

castratikron 10y ago

4chan is a phenomenon. It's the complete antithesis to centralized, regulated public forums like Facebook that demand all information about your identity and keep permanent records on everything you've ever said and done. It's the last vestige of pre-"Web 2.0". While there have been countless horrors that have arisen from 4chan, part of me would be sad to see it go. Most of the Internet culture of the last decade has been defined by 4chan. Would a switch to a distributed model of hosting have any chance of working? Chan@Home? I'd imagine the latency would be a lot higher, and it'd probably be ever harder to moderate than it is now.

dalke 10y ago
4chan depend on a central server, which is why lack of funding can cause a failure. Usenet/netnews is the complete antithesis to centralized forums.

thanatropism 10y ago

The king is gone, but not forgotten this is the story of Johnny Rotten it's better to burn out than to fade away...

MollyR 10y ago

I thought there were a bunch of "chans". Won't the others just replace 4chan in user share?

resfirestar 10y ago
>Won't the others just replace 4chan in user share? Due to its position as the nexus of "internet culture" for at least a few years in the late 2000s, 4chan is very special. It is one of two major general purpose chans (the other being 8chan). All other chans, including 8chan, define themselves along the lines of "4chan but...", "4chan without...", "4chan with...", or similar. And if they don't now, they started that way. 8chan is the only one that has gained and kept a large enough dedicated userbase for significant content and memes with broad appeal to originate from there. This is a unique consequence of its origin. Most living alt chans are specialized supplements to 4chan (the "4chan with..." category), and make no apologies for it. Many 4chan regulars frequent one or two: I enjoy cyberpunk literature and content, there's a chan for that. Some people hate the lack of a board dedicated to drugs, there's a chan for that. But most still go to 4chan, at least nostalgically, often in search of a long-gone "board culture" that we loved years ago. And 4chan remains the single point where chan culture blends, posting style is standardized, and memes catch fire. 8chan was not born as a supplement to 4chan. Like many failed chans, it was created when 4chan moderators did, or were perceived to be doing or planning, something to anger users. But 8chan and the controversy that popularized it were different. Usually moot's missteps become jokes. GamerGate convinced a significant number of people (more precisely, a subset of white male teenagers, henceforth "gators") that there really was a vast conspiracy to indoctrinate the youth using video games. 4chan's moderators were judged to be part of the media element of that conspiracy. From that point, 4chan permanently lost the trust and loyalty of gators. They went to 8chan, closely followed by far-right goons who take /pol/ very seriously and would become inconsolable when moot did routine pranks like background music or wacky CSS. Somehow this was a diverse enough group (in interests, not background) to put 8chan in direct competition with 4chan. If 4chan folds, I predict 8chan alone will get the bulk of the users unless a direct spiritual successor emerges. Board closures probably wouldn't matter to users, neither would ads or upload limits. It's more a question of whether those measures would actually solve the money problem.

r721 10y ago

Another discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12635999 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12635999