Reddit was amazing

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2 pointsvkb2 comments

Good observations. Questions to ask about them:

Can you be successful without acquiring some form of power, and can you receive that power and not work to retain it? In other words, how inevitable is the process that affected the extreme socialism of the early USSR and the extreme libertarianism of the early internet?

If this was triggered by the recent incidents at reddit, are they really relating to commercial / advertising pressure, or are they an attempt to use the power that the controllers of reddit have gained, towards what they see as worthwhile ends?

I really think a lot of this is driven by $$$, although some part of it probably is, yes, the CEO trying to gain control of Reddit, although judging by Yishan Wong's exit, that hasn't been possible for this site previously. As someone mentioned in another HN comment about the issue (I forget which thread), advertisers are scared of content they can't control, content that is in the hands of users who could go off-message at any moment. That's why small, "indie" sites never make money and why the most popular sites, such as Buzzfeed, as I mentioned, are so bland and universal as to offend as little of their demographic as possible.

As to the first part of your question, I'm hoping some people more qualified in historical analysis than me can jump in :)

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