5 ms·

It's always interesting to see how the value of communities gets concentrated and captured. 1. Communities for around disparate forums 2. Those communities mig

It's always interesting to see how the value of communities gets concentrated and captured. 1. Communities for around disparate forums 2. Those communities migrate to centralized service because of more eyeballs in one place, less work to maintain infrastructure, etc. 3. Centralized service captures increasing amount of value by running more ads, closing off more open channels, etc. This is clearly the lifecycle for Facebook, Reddit, and arguably Google. My question is: what's step 4? Are communities going to start unbundling, or does this trend just continue?

sefrost 6y ago
This article about unbundling Reddit made the rounds recently https://latecheckout.substack.com/p/the-guide-to-unbundling-reddit https://latecheckout.substack.com/p/the-guide-to-unbundling-...
- alangibson 6y ago
  The unbundling concept is making the rounds through the 'indie hacker' community. I've heard it mentioned a few podcasts recently. It'll be interesting to see what business spring up in the next couple of years that chip pieces off of Facebook and Reddit. I wonder if in a century we'll understand the economy of the Internet as constantly oscillating between concentration and decentralization.
  - ZephyrBlu 6y ago
    I think the communities that will be 'unbundled' are the ones that want to get away from memes and foster a more discussion-orientated community. All other content gets drowned out by memes eventually, which is a real shame.
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    That concept traces back to unbundling Craigslist, from 2010: https://thegongshow.tumblr.com/post/345941486/the-spawn-of-craigslist-like-most-vcs-that-focus https://thegongshow.tumblr.com/post/345941486/the-spawn-of-c... (That's been submitted to HN but with no traction to date: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=spawn%20of%20craigslist&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...)
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  There is definitely space for unbundling reddit. The key is, you have to give something of value to that specific community to lure them over. Solely copying a subreddit won't do
danmur 6y ago
Too late for Reddit now but free services should consider and publish their sustainability plans from the start, if they want to avoid this trap anyway
m463 6y ago
Step 4 is always issue stock.
bleepblorp 6y ago
Step 4 is that communities die. Well over half of all web traffic is from cell phones, and the mobile-first web is hostile to long text content. It is also incredibly hostile to user-created long text content. With the exception of people who need keyboards for work (tech workers, academics, journalists, writers, etc) there's no one left online to make community content anymore. Hence, HN (a community for tech workers and similarly minded people) and Twitter (where most organic, non-public-relations major players are journalists, academics, or writers). What passes for web communities have almost entirely become playgrounds for intellectual lightweights to spew memes at each other combined with a platform for entities posting inorganic content that pretends to be genuine.
- read_if_gay_ 6y ago
  > Twitter (where most organic major players are journalists, academics, and writers) You can curate your following list to make it feel like that’s true, but it’s really not at all.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    And who do you think the organic major players are?
    - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
      Lots of people from all kinds of backgrounds, journalists and academics among those for sure, but also influencers, celebrities, politicians, artists, bloggers, even just more or less regular people, etc. How it seems to you just depends on whether you go to Twitter for the latest tech news or fashion trends. And there's probably bigger interest in the latter. It's just like the internet in general.
      - ragnese 6y ago
        Genuine, unrelated, question: What is an "influencer"? I've only recently started seeing people refer to others or themselves as "influencers" (I'm not on Snapchat/Tiktok/Instagram/Twitter). The distopian cynic in me only understands it as "person with a bunch of followers on social media who occasionally peddles products" a.k.a a human ad. Is this about right?
edem 6y ago
I don't know but I'm pissed. That's why I started working on my own social platform as a replacement that has some core values that are aligned with the needs of the community: - UX is paramount on any device. - Your data is your own. This is especially important for community administrators who have literally no control over how the content is organized (true for Reddit, Facebook, etc) or where the content goes - Communities define their own rules - There is an easy way to organize meetups as well It works with a simple subscription model where we host the service. No ads, tracking or other shady shit involved. If you're interested I'm gonna post it here once the MVP is complete.
- Hammershaft 6y ago
  There is already high friction for existing communities to switch over to a new platform before you factor in the dealkiller that is a subscription cost.
  - edem 6y ago
    No fee for members, only for the owner of the community.
cblconfederate 6y ago
Hm . Well Yahoo was a bundler in the past . There doesnt seem to be a step 4 unless a new trend takes over and renders all of the old guard obsolete. As other have said, their end goal is cashing out in an IPO

sefrost 6y ago

This article about unbundling Reddit made the rounds recently https://latecheckout.substack.com/p/the-guide-to-unbundling-reddit https://latecheckout.substack.com/p/the-guide-to-unbundling-...

alangibson 6y ago
The unbundling concept is making the rounds through the 'indie hacker' community. I've heard it mentioned a few podcasts recently. It'll be interesting to see what business spring up in the next couple of years that chip pieces off of Facebook and Reddit. I wonder if in a century we'll understand the economy of the Internet as constantly oscillating between concentration and decentralization.
- ZephyrBlu 6y ago
  I think the communities that will be 'unbundled' are the ones that want to get away from memes and foster a more discussion-orientated community. All other content gets drowned out by memes eventually, which is a real shame.
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  That concept traces back to unbundling Craigslist, from 2010: https://thegongshow.tumblr.com/post/345941486/the-spawn-of-craigslist-like-most-vcs-that-focus https://thegongshow.tumblr.com/post/345941486/the-spawn-of-c... (That's been submitted to HN but with no traction to date: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=spawn%20of%20craigslist&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...)
cblconfederate 6y ago
There is definitely space for unbundling reddit. The key is, you have to give something of value to that specific community to lure them over. Solely copying a subreddit won't do

danmur 6y ago

Too late for Reddit now but free services should consider and publish their sustainability plans from the start, if they want to avoid this trap anyway

m463 6y ago

Step 4 is always issue stock.

bleepblorp 6y ago

Step 4 is that communities die. Well over half of all web traffic is from cell phones, and the mobile-first web is hostile to long text content. It is also incredibly hostile to user-created long text content. With the exception of people who need keyboards for work (tech workers, academics, journalists, writers, etc) there's no one left online to make community content anymore. Hence, HN (a community for tech workers and similarly minded people) and Twitter (where most organic, non-public-relations major players are journalists, academics, or writers). What passes for web communities have almost entirely become playgrounds for intellectual lightweights to spew memes at each other combined with a platform for entities posting inorganic content that pretends to be genuine.

read_if_gay_ 6y ago
> Twitter (where most organic major players are journalists, academics, and writers) You can curate your following list to make it feel like that’s true, but it’s really not at all.
- pjc50 6y ago
  And who do you think the organic major players are?
  - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
    Lots of people from all kinds of backgrounds, journalists and academics among those for sure, but also influencers, celebrities, politicians, artists, bloggers, even just more or less regular people, etc. How it seems to you just depends on whether you go to Twitter for the latest tech news or fashion trends. And there's probably bigger interest in the latter. It's just like the internet in general.
    - ragnese 6y ago
      Genuine, unrelated, question: What is an "influencer"? I've only recently started seeing people refer to others or themselves as "influencers" (I'm not on Snapchat/Tiktok/Instagram/Twitter). The distopian cynic in me only understands it as "person with a bunch of followers on social media who occasionally peddles products" a.k.a a human ad. Is this about right?

edem 6y ago

I don't know but I'm pissed. That's why I started working on my own social platform as a replacement that has some core values that are aligned with the needs of the community: - UX is paramount on any device. - Your data is your own. This is especially important for community administrators who have literally no control over how the content is organized (true for Reddit, Facebook, etc) or where the content goes - Communities define their own rules - There is an easy way to organize meetups as well It works with a simple subscription model where we host the service. No ads, tracking or other shady shit involved. If you're interested I'm gonna post it here once the MVP is complete.

Hammershaft 6y ago
There is already high friction for existing communities to switch over to a new platform before you factor in the dealkiller that is a subscription cost.
- edem 6y ago
  No fee for members, only for the owner of the community.

cblconfederate 6y ago

Hm . Well Yahoo was a bundler in the past . There doesnt seem to be a step 4 unless a new trend takes over and renders all of the old guard obsolete. As other have said, their end goal is cashing out in an IPO