This is what it's like on Reddit. Many of the popular and smaller subreddits won't let you participate unless you already have gained a certain amount of karma,

This is what it's like on Reddit. Many of the popular and smaller subreddits won't let you participate unless you already have gained a certain amount of karma, but you can't gain karma without participation. New users can't participate unless they go out of their way to find something they might not be interested in and comment until they have enough points to participate elsewhere.