5 ms·

Not just about piracy but.. This is the usual pattern in online discussion platforms. Start free, advocate for free speech, then figure out you need to make mo

Not just about piracy but.. This is the usual pattern in online discussion platforms. Start free, advocate for free speech, then figure out you need to make money and you suddenly stop being a rebel and sink down to be the corporate sellout you always preached against. Reddit will eventually be replaced by something else and the cycle continues.

lallysingh 8y ago
It's a natural movement of power between older and newer generations. As power transfers, the recipients change strategies from attack to defend.
- black_puppydog 8y ago
  that makes it sound far more inevitable than it really is.
  - mcguire 8y ago
    It sure looks inevitable.
    - black_puppydog 8y ago
      given that every corporate player gets displaced by another one that operates with the same incentives and structures, and plays by the same rules. as a counterexample: in this case, r/piracy (and reddit more generally) could (in theory, and increasingly in practice) be replaced by p2p tech, which would simply not be controllable, nor have any incentive to appease advertisers. a different example: you could say the same about healthcare providers. a medical startup could displace an established provider, then turn around and push the same rent extraction BS on their customers. Socialized healthcare (while it has its own problems for sure) will not follow the same rules. Read: if something seems sucky yet inevitable, you're probably not questioning enough of your assumptions.
SiempreViernes 8y ago
I'd argue that this is mostly restricted to for profit discussion platforms that only considers monthly users and are otherwise uninterested in community and topic issues. There are lots of subject matter discussion platforms that never go trough this phase as a natural consequence of having primary concerns that isn't simply growing MAU numbers.
- kyriakos 8y ago
  usually platforms that allow controversial topics to be discussed also happen to be the ones which grow faster. at some point, even hosting becomes a problem requirement some revenue streams. i am not blaming reddit or any other platform i am just stating that this cycle has existed for a long time and is predictable.
hi5eyes 8y ago
eternal september forever
notthemessiah 8y ago
I don't know, it seems like platforms have learned to adapt without causing mass emigration. Basically, their shittiness to their userbase has to be gradual at a rate that they gain new users faster than they lose old ones. And the turn to being shitty is often caused by the need to appease investors as you go for your next round of funding. But it seems that the patronage model is now offering substantial pro-consumer alternatives to the VC-backed model (growth at all costs, choke all competition with deep pockets).
pas 8y ago
Was Reddit preaching against copyrights? Or even against "corporate selloutism"? I mean, banning watch-people-die is obviously because they are trying to be somehow attracting more advertisers, being more profit-friendly, but they never condoned copyright infringement as far as I know.
- dpark 8y ago
  The best thing that ever happened to Reddit from a growth perspective was Digg blocking DeCSS keys. Digg flipped out trying to block it because it violated the DMCA and as a result a huge set of users fled to Reddit which notably did not block the same keys from being posted at the time. Edit: Looks like it was the AACS key (Blu-Ray and HD-DVD) was the key that set all this off, not CSS.

lallysingh 8y ago

It's a natural movement of power between older and newer generations. As power transfers, the recipients change strategies from attack to defend.

black_puppydog 8y ago
that makes it sound far more inevitable than it really is.
- mcguire 8y ago
  It sure looks inevitable.
  - black_puppydog 8y ago
    given that every corporate player gets displaced by another one that operates with the same incentives and structures, and plays by the same rules. as a counterexample: in this case, r/piracy (and reddit more generally) could (in theory, and increasingly in practice) be replaced by p2p tech, which would simply not be controllable, nor have any incentive to appease advertisers. a different example: you could say the same about healthcare providers. a medical startup could displace an established provider, then turn around and push the same rent extraction BS on their customers. Socialized healthcare (while it has its own problems for sure) will not follow the same rules. Read: if something seems sucky yet inevitable, you're probably not questioning enough of your assumptions.

SiempreViernes 8y ago

I'd argue that this is mostly restricted to for profit discussion platforms that only considers monthly users and are otherwise uninterested in community and topic issues. There are lots of subject matter discussion platforms that never go trough this phase as a natural consequence of having primary concerns that isn't simply growing MAU numbers.

kyriakos 8y ago
usually platforms that allow controversial topics to be discussed also happen to be the ones which grow faster. at some point, even hosting becomes a problem requirement some revenue streams. i am not blaming reddit or any other platform i am just stating that this cycle has existed for a long time and is predictable.

hi5eyes 8y ago

eternal september forever

notthemessiah 8y ago

I don't know, it seems like platforms have learned to adapt without causing mass emigration. Basically, their shittiness to their userbase has to be gradual at a rate that they gain new users faster than they lose old ones. And the turn to being shitty is often caused by the need to appease investors as you go for your next round of funding. But it seems that the patronage model is now offering substantial pro-consumer alternatives to the VC-backed model (growth at all costs, choke all competition with deep pockets).

pas 8y ago

Was Reddit preaching against copyrights? Or even against "corporate selloutism"? I mean, banning watch-people-die is obviously because they are trying to be somehow attracting more advertisers, being more profit-friendly, but they never condoned copyright infringement as far as I know.

dpark 8y ago
The best thing that ever happened to Reddit from a growth perspective was Digg blocking DeCSS keys. Digg flipped out trying to block it because it violated the DMCA and as a result a huge set of users fled to Reddit which notably did not block the same keys from being posted at the time. Edit: Looks like it was the AACS key (Blu-Ray and HD-DVD) was the key that set all this off, not CSS.