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To me it's the random jumping from site to site via browser extension that really made SU worth it. I can discover stuff through reddit, but the presence of a c

by jclos 8y ago

To me it's the random jumping from site to site via browser extension that really made SU worth it. I can discover stuff through reddit, but the presence of a comment section kind of ruins it since I am not disciplined enough to ignore it. As to fixing reddit, I agree with your changes, but you'd run into the same issue all candidates for remplacement ran into: reddit delivers value through the network effect. You need users to get value. You need value to get users. Basically unless you can kickstart the replacement with a shitton of existing data, or unless reddit fucks up as much as digg did before, it's hard to compete.

tacostakohashi 8y ago
Oh, right, another radical thought of mine - something that users would pay for. Even if it were just $1/month, one account per credit card only, it would serve as another little barrier to all the right people, and prevent throwaways and constant account deletion. Obviously for a commercial, advertiser-funded operation, it is all about more and more users and traffic and the quality of the content isn't a priority, but this eventually destroys everything. I'm imagining something much smaller, but potentially higher quality and self-sustaining. I guess I'm pretty much describing The Well, but hopefully cheaper and with more users, but not free and as many users as possible.
- eli 8y ago
  That's half of what makes the Metafilter discussions so good (the other half is aggressive behind-the-scenes moderation)
- brownbat 8y ago
  There used to be a mashup of random YouTube comments on one side, and random metafilter comments on the other testing, really validating, this theory. The difference was pretty stark. I could only find breadcrumbs: https://metatalk.metafilter.com/16003/Metafilter-comments-vs-Youtube-comments https://metatalk.metafilter.com/16003/Metafilter-comments-vs... An example might be archived somewhere...

by jclos 8y ago

tacostakohashi 8y ago

Oh, right, another radical thought of mine - something that users would pay for. Even if it were just $1/month, one account per credit card only, it would serve as another little barrier to all the right people, and prevent throwaways and constant account deletion. Obviously for a commercial, advertiser-funded operation, it is all about more and more users and traffic and the quality of the content isn't a priority, but this eventually destroys everything. I'm imagining something much smaller, but potentially higher quality and self-sustaining. I guess I'm pretty much describing The Well, but hopefully cheaper and with more users, but not free and as many users as possible.

eli 8y ago
That's half of what makes the Metafilter discussions so good (the other half is aggressive behind-the-scenes moderation)
brownbat 8y ago
There used to be a mashup of random YouTube comments on one side, and random metafilter comments on the other testing, really validating, this theory. The difference was pretty stark. I could only find breadcrumbs: https://metatalk.metafilter.com/16003/Metafilter-comments-vs-Youtube-comments https://metatalk.metafilter.com/16003/Metafilter-comments-vs... An example might be archived somewhere...