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I'm trying to remember when and infer why things got so consumer-y. Replaying it in my mind, there was Slashdot, Reddit which were fine. I think Digg was a down

I'm trying to remember when and infer why things got so consumer-y. Replaying it in my mind, there was Slashdot, Reddit which were fine. I think Digg was a downstep. Even Facebook was great at the start. If I had to pick one thing, I'd say it's about shallow consumption/interactions that kill the signal/noise. Like posting a picture/video with a caption, having it go viral with upvotes/reposts.

lamontcg 4y ago
It happened right about the time of Canter and Siegel and the September that never ended.
- karmakaze 4y ago
  That was for spam. I was thinking of regular user posts that are low quality in the way HN tries to avoid. Of course that wouldn't have happened until there was a large general population on Usenet--and the dates do check out.
  - lamontcg 4y ago
    Eternal September was exactly that.
    - karmakaze 4y ago
      That's what I meant by the dates lining up--correlation via common cause.