3 ms·

Yes, and so is the content creation with original posts, commenting and even just reading and deciding to like or upvote content. That is all labor that adds va

Yes, and so is the content creation with original posts, commenting and even just reading and deciding to like or upvote content. That is all labor that adds value and drives eyeballs in. The space seems ready for a model that pays everyone in the pipeline their true micro share of add and subscription revenue of what they contribute. I can't understand why something that does this hasn't taken over this space yet. There's crude versions of this with 'Karma', YouTube and twitch streaming revenue, substack, medium, brave rewards and so on. But nothing that just automatically works without sign up and a lot of friction.

fakedang 3y ago
> The space seems ready for a model that pays everyone in the pipeline their true micro share of add and subscription revenue of what they contribute. I can't understand why something that does this hasn't taken over this space yet. Nobody cares about being paid for content when they're all willing to do it for free. When I post on reddit, I'm not doing it for compensation, but for upvotes. Reddit is just another mini-Google. What we need is a model that is redditesque but not VC funded. Just a small team maintaining something on the lines of old.reddit.com. And maybe a paid app like Apollo.
- swader999 3y ago
  Sure, status does seem to reign. No reason why you can't have both. Many might choose to donate their earnings even.
  - fakedang 3y ago
    Exactly, if one is going by the number of badges that are paid for on reddit, even though they're not getting paid for it.
- paulmd 3y ago
  > What we need is a model that is redditesque but not VC funded. Just a small team maintaining something on the lines of old.reddit.com. the problem is that reddit's scale provides value too. those alternatives exist, but nobody wants to post on them because a subreddit/forum with <5 regular commenters is boring and valueless. and the scale provides an endless stream of eyeballs, and low friction of clicking between subs and commenting on a new thing you haven't before (cf: the burden of figuring out 27 different lemmy instances). in terms of evolutionary advantage, going big is what keeps subs alive, and it's what keeps platforms alive. Someone who is willing to pay to start a centralized reddit 2.0 and establish the definitive r/vacuumcleaners is going to have a market advantage over 30 small lemmy nodes all trying to discuss vacuum cleaners. Especially in anything remotely niche - yeah everyone is discussing video games and politics, but, the really niche hobby interests don't have the user count to survive a 99.9% loss in users. another related problem is moderation policies: reddit provides a "one size fits all" moderation policy and then allows communities to go tighter, based on the whims of mods. But in the fediverse model, a lot of pods just won't federate with places that have different moderation policies. There just is a ton of that administrative superstructure that reddit provides that actually adds a lot of value too. And that has been the problem with a lot of the discourse around leaving reddit: the exact reasons Mastodon and Lemmy are having trouble getting traction are the value that Reddit provides in the relationship. People can't solve the problems they can't acknowledge. And then the mods pretty much pay lip service to user-generated value but then either ignore it or use it as a pawn (going against community votes to reopen, not allowing reopen as an option in the vote, etc) that makes it pretty clear they think they're the real value-add and that reddit would collapse without the dashing handsome moderator who spends 10 minutes scrolling the mod queue while squeezing the lemon on the shitter a couple times a day.
  - fakedang 3y ago
    Reddit's scale is still possible with a smaller size team and a smaller budget. Instagram famously had 13 employees when they had as many active users as Reddit does, so running the site is not most of the core issue. Reddit did not lose money because of the core platform, ie old.reddit.com. Reddit lost money wasting on a number of initiatives like 1.) the mobile app 2.) shitty ad platform. Instagram advertises to me about the next hot restaurant near me, or some small business making a cool Trinket. Google does not get my eyeballs because of adblockers. Reddit serves me ads telling me how IBM is the hottest technology consulting shit in town, when I'm just looking for army compositions for Age of Empires 2.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  You say "nobody", but consider how many people would be interested in posting content if they could possibly be paid. There was a time where people simply posted videos on YouTube for free as well, with zero expectation of ad revenue money
  - fakedang 3y ago
    No thanks, I'd rather not have more spammers and SEO bloggers on my reddit feed thank you. Reddit is already bad as it is, and the last thing anyone needs is content made solely for views. YouTube was much better the time there was no revenue share. If they were to one day switch off the revenue spigot (like they seem to be on track to do currently), the creators will still stay. You think MrBeast will leave the platform that gives him access to the eyeballs? He'll just have to find (and find he will) another way to earn his butter.
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      >I'd rather not have more spammers and SEO bloggers on my reddit feed thank you. this implies that you don't already need to aggressively tailor your feed (and especially users) to get a sane experience. I'm already digging through 90% muck, not much will change there (or, was. Long since quit reddit specifically outside of very specific communities I haven't found replacements for). >You think MrBeast will leave the platform that gives him access to the eyeballs? There's 3 base levels of content creator here to consider: - small time ones not monetized or barely monetized (under 10k subs or so). These are the ones who probably could make more mowing lawns, let alone minimum wage. This category will have a fluxuation of those who stay because they care more about the clout and/or the content, and those who wanted to one day make a livinig wage on this. Any other who stay and want to be successful would be playing extremely hard to the algorithm, moreso than they already are. They'd fizzle out otherwise. - Then there's the ones with the hugest range (~100k-2m subs or so) who are anywhere from "this is a good part time gig" to "this is my full time career with a small to medium sized team contributing". This category would be absolutely decimated by the impact. The larger side may have to dowsize and/or reduce the content stream, likely rely much heavier on ad sponsors, and otherwise compromise their content. The smaller side would just fizzle out, full stop. large but not quite large enough to get more ad deals, likely a solo channel with at best 1-2 editors/help on the side. They cannot live off of youtube any longer. This is where 95% of my feed comes from and it would only make my experience worse. - Then ofc there's the massive 10m+ subs, the MrBeasts of the world. They are so massive and have so many pools of revenue to draw from (sponsors, merch, "native ads" where they just make a video about a company under the company's dime, crowdfunding sites, commisions, other social media, etc.). Many of these are efectively millionaires and can stop anytime they want. They won't be as strongly affected, maybe have some layoffs and slight slowdown of content. But it's losing 1 of a dozen different ways they make money; unfortunate but not gamebreaking. This effectively turns Youtube into a place either of pure passion or top level coporations in all but name. I don't see this as a better time. Maybe pre-Google Youtube was a magical place, but there's no closing Pandora's box to return to those times.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
Someone is trying it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36296695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36296695 To call it bare bones is an understatement, but I do wonder how it or potential other similar sites may work in this modern era. Will people who truly want quality content and discussion put their money where their mouths are? Only time will tell.

fakedang 3y ago

> The space seems ready for a model that pays everyone in the pipeline their true micro share of add and subscription revenue of what they contribute. I can't understand why something that does this hasn't taken over this space yet. Nobody cares about being paid for content when they're all willing to do it for free. When I post on reddit, I'm not doing it for compensation, but for upvotes. Reddit is just another mini-Google. What we need is a model that is redditesque but not VC funded. Just a small team maintaining something on the lines of old.reddit.com. And maybe a paid app like Apollo.

swader999 3y ago
Sure, status does seem to reign. No reason why you can't have both. Many might choose to donate their earnings even.
- fakedang 3y ago
  Exactly, if one is going by the number of badges that are paid for on reddit, even though they're not getting paid for it.
paulmd 3y ago
> What we need is a model that is redditesque but not VC funded. Just a small team maintaining something on the lines of old.reddit.com. the problem is that reddit's scale provides value too. those alternatives exist, but nobody wants to post on them because a subreddit/forum with <5 regular commenters is boring and valueless. and the scale provides an endless stream of eyeballs, and low friction of clicking between subs and commenting on a new thing you haven't before (cf: the burden of figuring out 27 different lemmy instances). in terms of evolutionary advantage, going big is what keeps subs alive, and it's what keeps platforms alive. Someone who is willing to pay to start a centralized reddit 2.0 and establish the definitive r/vacuumcleaners is going to have a market advantage over 30 small lemmy nodes all trying to discuss vacuum cleaners. Especially in anything remotely niche - yeah everyone is discussing video games and politics, but, the really niche hobby interests don't have the user count to survive a 99.9% loss in users. another related problem is moderation policies: reddit provides a "one size fits all" moderation policy and then allows communities to go tighter, based on the whims of mods. But in the fediverse model, a lot of pods just won't federate with places that have different moderation policies. There just is a ton of that administrative superstructure that reddit provides that actually adds a lot of value too. And that has been the problem with a lot of the discourse around leaving reddit: the exact reasons Mastodon and Lemmy are having trouble getting traction are the value that Reddit provides in the relationship. People can't solve the problems they can't acknowledge. And then the mods pretty much pay lip service to user-generated value but then either ignore it or use it as a pawn (going against community votes to reopen, not allowing reopen as an option in the vote, etc) that makes it pretty clear they think they're the real value-add and that reddit would collapse without the dashing handsome moderator who spends 10 minutes scrolling the mod queue while squeezing the lemon on the shitter a couple times a day.
- fakedang 3y ago
  Reddit's scale is still possible with a smaller size team and a smaller budget. Instagram famously had 13 employees when they had as many active users as Reddit does, so running the site is not most of the core issue. Reddit did not lose money because of the core platform, ie old.reddit.com. Reddit lost money wasting on a number of initiatives like 1.) the mobile app 2.) shitty ad platform. Instagram advertises to me about the next hot restaurant near me, or some small business making a cool Trinket. Google does not get my eyeballs because of adblockers. Reddit serves me ads telling me how IBM is the hottest technology consulting shit in town, when I'm just looking for army compositions for Age of Empires 2.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
You say "nobody", but consider how many people would be interested in posting content if they could possibly be paid. There was a time where people simply posted videos on YouTube for free as well, with zero expectation of ad revenue money
- fakedang 3y ago
  No thanks, I'd rather not have more spammers and SEO bloggers on my reddit feed thank you. Reddit is already bad as it is, and the last thing anyone needs is content made solely for views. YouTube was much better the time there was no revenue share. If they were to one day switch off the revenue spigot (like they seem to be on track to do currently), the creators will still stay. You think MrBeast will leave the platform that gives him access to the eyeballs? He'll just have to find (and find he will) another way to earn his butter.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    >I'd rather not have more spammers and SEO bloggers on my reddit feed thank you. this implies that you don't already need to aggressively tailor your feed (and especially users) to get a sane experience. I'm already digging through 90% muck, not much will change there (or, was. Long since quit reddit specifically outside of very specific communities I haven't found replacements for). >You think MrBeast will leave the platform that gives him access to the eyeballs? There's 3 base levels of content creator here to consider: - small time ones not monetized or barely monetized (under 10k subs or so). These are the ones who probably could make more mowing lawns, let alone minimum wage. This category will have a fluxuation of those who stay because they care more about the clout and/or the content, and those who wanted to one day make a livinig wage on this. Any other who stay and want to be successful would be playing extremely hard to the algorithm, moreso than they already are. They'd fizzle out otherwise. - Then there's the ones with the hugest range (~100k-2m subs or so) who are anywhere from "this is a good part time gig" to "this is my full time career with a small to medium sized team contributing". This category would be absolutely decimated by the impact. The larger side may have to dowsize and/or reduce the content stream, likely rely much heavier on ad sponsors, and otherwise compromise their content. The smaller side would just fizzle out, full stop. large but not quite large enough to get more ad deals, likely a solo channel with at best 1-2 editors/help on the side. They cannot live off of youtube any longer. This is where 95% of my feed comes from and it would only make my experience worse. - Then ofc there's the massive 10m+ subs, the MrBeasts of the world. They are so massive and have so many pools of revenue to draw from (sponsors, merch, "native ads" where they just make a video about a company under the company's dime, crowdfunding sites, commisions, other social media, etc.). Many of these are efectively millionaires and can stop anytime they want. They won't be as strongly affected, maybe have some layoffs and slight slowdown of content. But it's losing 1 of a dozen different ways they make money; unfortunate but not gamebreaking. This effectively turns Youtube into a place either of pure passion or top level coporations in all but name. I don't see this as a better time. Maybe pre-Google Youtube was a magical place, but there's no closing Pandora's box to return to those times.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

Someone is trying it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36296695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36296695 To call it bare bones is an understatement, but I do wonder how it or potential other similar sites may work in this modern era. Will people who truly want quality content and discussion put their money where their mouths are? Only time will tell.