9 ms·

> I used to believe that too, but reality has convinced me of the opposite. There isn't, and there has never been, a large (hundreds of millions of active users

> I used to believe that too, but reality has convinced me of the opposite. There isn't, and there has never been, a large (hundreds of millions of active users) online community that wasn't run by a for-profit entity. So the really difficult part, the one where the value ultimately comes from, does seem to lie in hosting and running such a community, and in attracting users. If that wasn't so immensely difficult and expensive, everyone would be doing it. Your logic is: there has never been a not-for-profit large online community, therefore the value comes from the specific for-profit company that currently exists. That is unconvincing because it is overly specific in who it is attributing value to. Is Facebook responsible for most of the value of its community? No, because if Facebook didn't exist, Myspace would still exist and do the same thing that Facebook is doing. Therefore, Facebook (and Myspace) are both not creating the value, because if they didn't exist, someone else would exist that does the same thing. The main reason there's one behemoth is because of network effects, which makes it nearly impossible for competition to start, which gives the illusion that that behemoth is doing something unique and exceptionally skilful. But they are not. One valid interpretation is that they're free-riding off the community that they've captured.

p-e-w 3y ago
> Your logic is: there has never been a not-for-profit large online community, therefore the value comes from the specific for-profit company that currently exists. No, my logic is: there has never been a not-for-profit large online community, therefore the value comes from infrastructure, network effects, and brand recognition – and not from "the community" as commonly claimed. Once the infrastructure is in place (which requires immense upfront investment) and enough money is spent on promotion, the userbase will cross the critical threshold required for growth, and content will be generated as a result. Just think about it: If it's really "the users" that bring all the value to the table, then why can't those users manage to organize into a community that's not run by greedy profiteers? Because the "running" is where the real difficulty, and thus the real source of value, is.
- hackerlight 3y ago
  > infrastructure, network effects, and brand recognition That's reasonable, but then you leap from there into giving credit to Reddit per se, instead of a Reddit-like company that would exist in Reddit's place if Reddit didn't exist. That's where we disagree. In Reddit's absence, another company would rise to do the same thing, therefore Reddit is providing little to no unique value to the world. The delta of the world with and without Reddit is close to zero. Hence no value. > If it's really "the users" that bring all the value to the table, then why can't those users manage to organize into a community that's not run by greedy profiteers? Because the "running" is where the real difficulty, and thus the real source of value, is. This is a conflation of necessary and sufficient conditions. Infrastructure, by itself, is a necessary but not sufficient condition. So are users. Either of these things in isolation have no value because neither of them are sufficient conditions.
  - p-e-w 3y ago
    > The delta of the world with and without Reddit is close to zero. Hence no value. The same is true for the users. There are 8 billion people on the planet, two thirds of which use the Internet. There's no shortage of users able to form online communities. By the above logic, those communities have no value since they are replenishable from a near-limitless supply of new users.
    - hackerlight 3y ago
      No, because Reddit has captured all users that want to use a Reddit-like service. If Reddit's users all died, Reddit and all potential substitute Reddit-like services would die. But if Reddit itself dies, a Reddit-like clone would most likely arise, because Reddit itself isn't providing unique value to the world.
  - taxyz 3y ago
    I’m not sure how you can say Reddit deserves none of the credit for creating Reddit. It has to be at least as valuable (from a revenue perspective) to create the site as it costs to design and run one of the most trafficked site in the world otherwise no company would just magically appear in its place. You almost act as if some people stumbled upon great software/infrastructure and improperly started charging people to use it. This isn’t some mountain spring some company claimed and is now charging the tribes down stream for access. The communities on Reddit aren’t the valuable part. I don’t visit 99% of the subreddits. The valuable thing is I can go on one site, find a subreddit for everything I’m interested in, participate with the same account and have no learning curve/same UI/UX as the other communities I’m a part of. You can try to argue that those communities being there is what’s valuable to me, but without Reddit they all wouldn’t be on the same site. Your argument reads as some poor adaption of the labor theory of value. Right now Reddit isn’t profitable, as long as these economics hold, no one is going to fill in for Reddit if it were to close. And all the mods and users can’t change that.
flangola7 3y ago
It also ignores the capitalistic system it lives in. Commercial projects prosper because everything is designed to make that happen.

p-e-w 3y ago

> Your logic is: there has never been a not-for-profit large online community, therefore the value comes from the specific for-profit company that currently exists. No, my logic is: there has never been a not-for-profit large online community, therefore the value comes from infrastructure, network effects, and brand recognition – and not from "the community" as commonly claimed. Once the infrastructure is in place (which requires immense upfront investment) and enough money is spent on promotion, the userbase will cross the critical threshold required for growth, and content will be generated as a result. Just think about it: If it's really "the users" that bring all the value to the table, then why can't those users manage to organize into a community that's not run by greedy profiteers? Because the "running" is where the real difficulty, and thus the real source of value, is.

hackerlight 3y ago
> infrastructure, network effects, and brand recognition That's reasonable, but then you leap from there into giving credit to Reddit per se, instead of a Reddit-like company that would exist in Reddit's place if Reddit didn't exist. That's where we disagree. In Reddit's absence, another company would rise to do the same thing, therefore Reddit is providing little to no unique value to the world. The delta of the world with and without Reddit is close to zero. Hence no value. > If it's really "the users" that bring all the value to the table, then why can't those users manage to organize into a community that's not run by greedy profiteers? Because the "running" is where the real difficulty, and thus the real source of value, is. This is a conflation of necessary and sufficient conditions. Infrastructure, by itself, is a necessary but not sufficient condition. So are users. Either of these things in isolation have no value because neither of them are sufficient conditions.
- p-e-w 3y ago
  > The delta of the world with and without Reddit is close to zero. Hence no value. The same is true for the users. There are 8 billion people on the planet, two thirds of which use the Internet. There's no shortage of users able to form online communities. By the above logic, those communities have no value since they are replenishable from a near-limitless supply of new users.
  - hackerlight 3y ago
    No, because Reddit has captured all users that want to use a Reddit-like service. If Reddit's users all died, Reddit and all potential substitute Reddit-like services would die. But if Reddit itself dies, a Reddit-like clone would most likely arise, because Reddit itself isn't providing unique value to the world.
- taxyz 3y ago
  I’m not sure how you can say Reddit deserves none of the credit for creating Reddit. It has to be at least as valuable (from a revenue perspective) to create the site as it costs to design and run one of the most trafficked site in the world otherwise no company would just magically appear in its place. You almost act as if some people stumbled upon great software/infrastructure and improperly started charging people to use it. This isn’t some mountain spring some company claimed and is now charging the tribes down stream for access. The communities on Reddit aren’t the valuable part. I don’t visit 99% of the subreddits. The valuable thing is I can go on one site, find a subreddit for everything I’m interested in, participate with the same account and have no learning curve/same UI/UX as the other communities I’m a part of. You can try to argue that those communities being there is what’s valuable to me, but without Reddit they all wouldn’t be on the same site. Your argument reads as some poor adaption of the labor theory of value. Right now Reddit isn’t profitable, as long as these economics hold, no one is going to fill in for Reddit if it were to close. And all the mods and users can’t change that.

flangola7 3y ago

It also ignores the capitalistic system it lives in. Commercial projects prosper because everything is designed to make that happen.