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That's because monetisation via serving food/alcohol sales (in moderation) can enhance the socialisation experience, so its a win-win. Because big media got ho

That's because monetisation via serving food/alcohol sales (in moderation) can enhance the socialisation experience, so its a win-win. Because big media got hooked on advertising revenue and news became subsidised and we got news/information cheaply, we'd been collectively taught that fact generation and dispersion costs were neglible (although they're not, work and energy is required and this was offset by the ad. revenue). Move this to the digital space where information flows at close to light speed and you can accurately measure all sorts of marketing stuff - it just goes faster to the point of absurdity. Whatever value we can create via connectivity gets trashed by being subverted or obverted by corporate interests. I'm now pissed off because I pay youtube $x per month not to be interrupted by ads, and now the content creators have their own ads in their content. When you scale out, it becomes a sad picture of humanity that is excitedly self-reinforcing monetisation of things via interruption of engagement/continuity. Actual value is evapourating. No wonder we're all getting ADHD. The spaces that are mostly simple and left alone are where interesting things can still continually occur. That's precisely why HN is actually still going strong.

Grimm1 5y ago
I agree with you, I find size is a predictor of decline in quality. HN hasn't hit that threshold, but even still I know that with what growth it has had the moderation efforts to keep it this way also increased significantly.
- ItsMonkk 5y ago
  It's Dunbar's Number. When a tribe gets to large, because of Metcalfe's law the tribe loses the ability to discuss things to a level of nuance that is required, and that causes fractures that lead to a tribal split. Because all of the internet communities have no natural way to split, the only thing left is for them to become toxic and eventually die. Systems attempt to keep the tribe going longer by attempting to keep track of metrics, and this works for a while because the tribe had built up trust, but the bigger the tribe gets(with new members never trusting, forming Eternal September), the more the metrics reign, Goodhart's law states the more inevitable it is that it collapses. > ... there seems to be only one cause behind all forms of social misery: bigness. Oversimplified as this may seem, we shall find the idea more easily acceptable if we consider that bigness, or oversize, is really much more than just a social problem. It appears to be the one and only problem permeating all creation. Whenever something is wrong, something is too big. ... And if the body of a people becomes diseased with the fever of aggression, brutality, collectivism, or massive idiocy, it is not because it has fallen victim to bad leadership or mental derangement. It is because human beings, so charming as individuals or in small aggregations, have been welded into overconcentrated social units. - Leopold Kohr, 1957

Grimm1 5y ago

I agree with you, I find size is a predictor of decline in quality. HN hasn't hit that threshold, but even still I know that with what growth it has had the moderation efforts to keep it this way also increased significantly.

ItsMonkk 5y ago
It's Dunbar's Number. When a tribe gets to large, because of Metcalfe's law the tribe loses the ability to discuss things to a level of nuance that is required, and that causes fractures that lead to a tribal split. Because all of the internet communities have no natural way to split, the only thing left is for them to become toxic and eventually die. Systems attempt to keep the tribe going longer by attempting to keep track of metrics, and this works for a while because the tribe had built up trust, but the bigger the tribe gets(with new members never trusting, forming Eternal September), the more the metrics reign, Goodhart's law states the more inevitable it is that it collapses. > ... there seems to be only one cause behind all forms of social misery: bigness. Oversimplified as this may seem, we shall find the idea more easily acceptable if we consider that bigness, or oversize, is really much more than just a social problem. It appears to be the one and only problem permeating all creation. Whenever something is wrong, something is too big. ... And if the body of a people becomes diseased with the fever of aggression, brutality, collectivism, or massive idiocy, it is not because it has fallen victim to bad leadership or mental derangement. It is because human beings, so charming as individuals or in small aggregations, have been welded into overconcentrated social units. - Leopold Kohr, 1957