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> prohibited from profit-seeking A more pragmatic goal might be that they are not ad or attention driven. It's the fight for attention (specifically "content"
by version_five 5y ago
> prohibited from profit-seeking
A more pragmatic goal might be that they are not ad or attention driven. It's the fight for attention (specifically "content" as a ruse to get you to see adds) that has led directly to the current censorship problems, as well as many other issues, in part because its created these big platforms that try to make everyone watch ads that are lightning rods for interests that want to control what people say.
I don't think subscription models suffer from the same problem, because their "content" is the actual product, not the bait, and so the communities they support are very different and their attack surface is smaller.
- throwawaygh 5y agoIf anything, the substack incentives are even worse. At least radicalizing was a second-order effect of Google/FB incentives. It's damn close to the first-order optimization objective for a company that depends on getting people so worked up that they'll pay to join a mailing list. (Who pays to join a mailing list?! never in my life....) Answer: the Most True Believers.
- yakireev 5y ago> Who pays to join a mailing list?! Every newspaper subscriber over the course of history.
- throwawaygh 5y agoThat’s not the same. It’s more analogous to subscribing to only one particular column.