> and if they get a large enough market share they can just start their own Reddit. That assumes that Apollo is sufficiently profitable to host the necessary b

> and if they get a large enough market share they can just start their own Reddit. That assumes that Apollo is sufficiently profitable to host the necessary backend systems to support a reddit clone. This also means that they need to have moderators (and if they're volunteer moderates where back at the "reddit takes advantage of volunteer moderators" square). It also means that this instance would have the appropriate legal staff to be able to handle trademark disputes, DMCA claims, and assorted challenges to maintain itself in the face of trolls, unsavory content, and such. The moat that Reddit has from such upstarts isn't that its hard to build an instance, or stand one up, or even maintaining a community there - but rather making sure that it stays up by following the assorted laws (GDPR, CDA, trademark, copyright, etc...) out while maintaining a sufficient income stream to pay the staff (and maintain advertisers if you're not going full subscription only).