Huh? 98.1% of users don't post [0]. The user mentioned in the article has the most points of anyone, meaning their posts have the most votes. That doesn't indicate dislike. Quite the opposite, actually.
Was there a poll about this user to gauge sentiment?
[0]https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/b5f9wi/let...
If national news stations get high ratings does that mean people necessarily like the people generating or publishing the content? Is it impossible for a medium to generate interest and attention while actively attempting to exploit or manipulate its viewers?
Most users do not notice the poster at all when upvoting a thread. Notice the top level thread [0] here talking about Reddit Enhancement Suite and the epiphany that comes with monitoring which accounts one is passively upvoting.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=23258721&goto=item%3Fi...
I think national news stations are not an apt comparison, since they have faces. This user, for all intents and purposes, exists only in text and non-personal image posts. For that reason -- the lack of "personal connection" that voice and face provide -- upvotes are reasonable proxy for "like" and "approval".
I contend that people don't "dislike" this user specifically, but actually "dislike" the idea that the content they are consuming comes not from many original minds, but a few minds copying the same content over and over. As I pointed out in my original comment, this is the entire platform! What people dislike is not the user, but the entire system.
In that regard, it is possible for a medium to generate interest and attention while actively attempting to exploit or manipulate its viewers, because that's what Reddit does. It's a classic attention merchant.
His point about “most” users disliking it is questionable, and might be misconstruing the thoughts of a vocal minority, but I think there’s some merit to an anti-hedonistic mindset when it comes to reddit style content posting.