4 ms·
I can't speak about the Internet at large, but Reddit was a YC startup, and its growing pains are instructive for those who want to understand where their own s
by raganwald 14y ago
I can't speak about the Internet at large, but Reddit was a YC startup, and its growing pains are instructive for those who want to understand where their own startup dreams may lead, and the challenges of managing the unintended consequences of disrupting industries and/or society.
- danso 14y agoThis is exactly right and I'm glad to see the topic covered by someone who's held in high esteem at HN, as it seems all the other discussions on this topic have been downmodded. Many online startups today are basing part of their growth on user-submitted work/content. Reddit is one of the few that have reached a critical mass such that the system is worth gaming, and now Reddit has to reconsider its strategy. This has happened to, oh, only about every other online community/startup that has reached a commercially-valuable mass of users, including Digg, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, Myspace, etc. etc.
- bryanlarsen 14y agoIn the Amanda Todd story, the "bad guys" are Youtube, Facebook & memegenerator. I guess the big difference is that the first two have gone through these sorts of things before -- there are some new aspects of this for Reddit. I think it would be interesting to compare the rules that Facebook uses to take down Pages vs the ones that are used to take down subreddits, but I don't think the Facebook rules are public. Facebook definitely took down some of the "good riddance Amanda Todd" pages, but I understand they are leaving some up that many find offensive.
- maxerickson 14y agoI find it somewhat instructive that the reddit founders started a new business where they don't host user content and make revenue by getting their users off the site faster or with a higher level of satisfaction than competitors.