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People will make content as a hobby, but you won't see people doing it on the level (frequency or quality) they have been today. Internet likes and shares are nice but if they won't pay the bills, and a lot of creators will prioritize their time accordingly.

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I have a hard time believing that someone on HN, a crowd whose primary job involves using free software and whose primary hobby is reading Wikipedia articles, would just idly speculate about things against the most blatant contrary evidence.

But then, this being HN, this sort of speculation is to be expected, heh.

Wikipedia is a great example. They have to go begging the world every few months to keep the greatest website in the world operating. HN (and dang's job) is funded by the excess of YCombinator, and the rest of us just show up to chat whenever.

But both of these sites show that:

1) Extraordinary value can indeed be created for free, simply because people want to contribute something. You'll note that all the money pays for in both cases is hosting.

2) Both sites can exist without involving the advertising industry and all its corruption.

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