He was banned on provenly false pretenses, although it’s still a matter of debate what the real reasons were.
Chased away was probably the wrong way to put it.
6 karma · joined March 14, 2023
Chased away was probably the wrong way to put it.
No one knows for sure why he was banned but the most credible theory is that:
(1) he knew too much about YC’s lack of support for Aaron Swartz (who was a Reddit cofounder, thus YC alum) and his reputation when the man was in federal crosshairs, and discrediting MOC was a preemptive strike of sorts.
(2) he pointed out the existence of algorithmic manipulations (slowban, rankban) before anyone knew those were a thing.
(3) he wrote some blog post in 2012 you can’t even find but that one of the YC partners thought was personally about him. I can’t verify this because I think the post was deleted years ago.
It could be all or any of those in some combination.
I don’t think anyone has a good sense of how this problem will be solved. It’s possible that commercial writing is done. True literary work will still have a chance if it spreads by word of mouth but I don’t know how society will pay for it.
Trad pub isn’t likely to save us. There will be more profit in gaming these new capabilities than in trying to protect elitist literary sorts, most of whom don’t make any money.