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You know, there's always been a very simple solution to "but then they expand"--just cap your userbase.

It's almost like HN is so exposed to web services going for exponential-hockey-stick-viral-growth, that they forget that you can intentionally avoid that curve if you like.

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Like Malda said in the submission article: That doesn't make the graph go up and right.

It would be interesting to try that approach out, though. I would think a $5 fee would cap it for you — naturally raising the cap only when the industry your site focuses on grows as well.

The fee seems to have worked for Metafilter. That and active moderation.

This is how private torrent trackers try to keep their content quality high and, for the most part, it seems to work relatively well actually. Obviously it's not the same for a social news site necessarily.

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