I see why they want to create their own curated content. A friend of mine has created and run several user-generated content sites and he said: "user generated content is worthless; largely racism and porn." It's driven by the lowest common denominator.

As long as content is hosted on company-controlled servers where ad revenue is the model for survival, you're going to see slow declines and eventual busts like Digg. Users hate being advertised to and censored.

The future is probably something where people pay a small amount to access a forum that's somehow distributed on their machines (phones, PCs, etc) and not controlled by any organization. Data transfer (even mobile) and storage are getting cheaper. It'll be like bitcoin, but for discussions.

>As long as content is hosted on company-controlled servers where ad revenue is the model for survival, you're going to see slow declines and eventual busts like Digg.

That's really not what happened at Digg. The problem at Digg was a structure which rewarded "power users" and allowed third party commercial interests to gain control of the site. It's bad enough that Digg had advertising - eventually we were looking at Digg ads to get to content that was itself advertising.

And not all user generated content is worthless. Youtube is a good example of this - I can point to user after user who has uploaded quality original content of one kind or another for years.

Yes, 90% of it is crap, but if you subscribe to the channels you like and check out the channels your subscriptions recommend, you can avoid nearly all of it. And, you know, Sturgeon's Law.

Yes, to say that user generated content is porn and racism, that really says more about the person saying it.

(A more real problem is that early adopters of any web community building effort are overwhelmingly just there to self-promote in one form or another.)

Youtube can be a significant revenue steam for the users through so it's not a good example.

Digg failed because of attempts to monetize it better through ads. Users revolted and eventually it crumbled. Users weren't able to control their content.

Regarding your second point, if you include Youtube comments, and not just the videos, it's definitely 90% crap.

I disagree on Digg. I didn't mind the ads. Not enough to stop using the site, anyway. What I minded was the transition of the content to advertising. Plus, at the same time they did a site redesign that made it look like one of those auto-generated news sites.

Comments on youtube... yeah, they're crap for most videos. I guess technically comments are user generated content, but I never really think of them that way. Even more so on a site like youtube where the videos are the important bit.

>"The future is probably something where people pay a small amount to access a forum that's somehow distributed on their machines (phones, PCs, etc) and not controlled by any organization. Data transfer (even mobile) and storage are getting cheaper. It'll be like bitcoin, but for discussions."

No. The future is the next Digg, the next Reddit, etc. Just like a torrent site, when one goes down (for whatever reason), the next in line pops up to take its place (and users). The internet does not want to pay money to access a forum. The internet also does not want to be advertised to. So the cycle will continue.

Here's the problem (IMO): Reddit has too many features and too big a userbase to replicate as Reddit itself did a decade ago. voat.co has been in development for years and still lacks crucial systems for things like content moderation, monetization, scaling, etc.

Essentially for a coup of Reddit to occur you have to take a large chunk of Reddit at once. That is very hard to do.

Reddit doesn't have that many features hell it lacks tools for getting notification on sibling, or aunt/uncle comments, and you can't even edit threads more then 6 months old.

It doesn't have a standard spoiler syntax for comments or a spoiler tag(people hack it in with nsfw tags styled to say spoiler but from the main page it will look like porn(ie be marked nsfw)).

It lacks a wysiwyg editor by default. It would be nice to have a nsfw subreddit namespace so that sex related subreddits don't take up possibly safe/useful names and so that you know that /r/humanporn isn't porn. Also a nsfl tag. Ability to expand "ALL" comments. Ability to pick percentage of home page each of your subscribed subs get.

Also a policy that allows removing bad mods from power, ie /r/Holocaust really should not be run by anti-semitic holocaust deniers.

Oh a way to sort posts by reverse age and allow posts in between time x and y not just last hour/day/month/year.

---

Of course reddit does have good mobile apps (at least on android), a competitor would need a good mobile app for at least 2 systems which can take a while.

Voat's issue is that it managed to get users from the most controversial communities... and that's about it. If you're not interested in Donald Trump, GamerGate or something similarly controversial, then Voat is simply a really empty forum that doesn't have enough members or posts to keep people returning.

It's having the issue a lot of 'free speech' centric services have; it appeals to a minority who feel censored, but not the mass market that simply want to discuss less controversial topics.

And until there's enough people able to talk about a variety of subjects, the site is basically pigeonholed as the 'place people banned from Reddit might go'.

voat.co was developed because someone wanted to develop something with ASP.net.

Reddit, the software platform is open source: https://github.com/reddit

Voat is run on ASP.NET but it's open source as well:

https://github.com/voat

I'm not exactly proud of it, but I've paid more for hosting my own stuff (or really, having a server that I do almost nothing with) than I have paid in patreon-like subscriptions and flattr. So I don't think the "on your own machines" model is entirely impossible.

With the advent of the cloud and the ubiquity of mobile devices, the next Digg won't be controlled by anyone other than the users. They will supply the storage and bandwidth. The community will truly be in charge, and also be responsible for policing it. When the cost (time) of policing it becomes too much (even with machine-learning bots to remove ads, child porn, hate speech, harassment, etc), then a new version of that model will appear.

While we're at it, we can also throw blockchain at the problem. It will be hosted on Etherium as the DAO (Distributed Authoring Organisation). Policy changes require 51% of the computing power. If someone doesn't like some content, they can fork off and make their own child DAO, living in a universe where that content no longer exists.

> A friend of mine has created and run several user-generated content sites and he said: "user generated content is worthless; largely racism and porn." It's driven by the lowest common denominator.

What about HN? I don't disagree that a lot of ugc on the web is crap. I do think though that there are viable strategies for encouraging quality content.

> user generated content is worthless; largely racism and porn." It's driven by the lowest common denominator

stackoverflow would be one counter example.

So would a lot of subreddit (IS, CS, and science oriented ones for example).

Oh and what about wikipedia?

How much does it really cost to run a forum system? Even a big one? Look at 4chan.

Well, I imagine Reddit costs far more than 4chan to run, not just because they store the content at perpetuity, but also because Reddit has actual employees, not just volunteers working out of the g... evil of their hearts.

But, more importantly, how much Reddit costs to run, at their current scale, is immaterial. Reddit has raised $50 million in VC money and is valued at $500 million, that means that half a billion is the mark they are expected to meet/exceed in lifetime revenue, independent on what their costs are. For better or worse, for-profit startups have very different incentives than non-corporate internet communities. This allows Reddit to not be 4chan (wider audience, some level of control on trolling and harassment, etc), but at the same time, it can't be 4chan (including running on a ramen-for-one-and-electricity-bill budget if need to be)

Sites like Reddit should not be businesses in the first place. There's a conflict of interest right there, between the very idea of community site and the needs of a business. They've been handling it somewhat gracefully to date, but business pressures increase...

Normally I'd suggest they start another business doing some honest work (i.e. not ad revenue). Say, a hosting service, since they have experience with that already. Reddit then could become a marketing expense for them - something they'd run for the sole ability to say "Yes, we're the ones who're running the Front Page of the Internet! As you can see, we have some experience!".

But, as you said, they took VC money. It changes the picture significantly. I'm not sure they can be helped.

In every get-rich-quick scheme there's a catch. In startups, the catch is that if you care about your product then taking VC money is a difficult decision because it means surrendering your business to the whims of people who absolutely don't care about your product.

That means Reddit is trying to run a high-margin business in a low-margin space. As ad blockers get better, that may stop working. At one time, it was expensive to run a service with a large user base. Technology has progressed, and it no longer is.

Craigslist wiped the entire classified ad industry and much of the newspaper industry off the face of the earth merely by being the low-cost provider. Ad-supported businesses should be afraid. Very afraid.

As for Reddit, the VCs may have to take a haircut.

Moot came from a wealthy family and was able to subsidize 4chan. He deserves a lot of respect for that, but it's not a sustainable/replicable model.

Depends on a lot of factors.

Is the content mostly text or does it have a lot of images/videos/sound files? If the former, it's a lot cheaper to run than the latter (hence why a lot of big community sites are so 'vanilla').

What's the audience/topic? Some fields are easier to monetise than others. People in tech are more likely to use Adblockers, but they're also more likely to try out new methods of monetisation (like say, a Patreon type system or something involving Bitcoin).

How much do you know about running a server? Much cheaper to run a big site on an unmanaged service than a managed one.

How many people post vs how many people read. More posting in less time = more server resources and more service costs.

What script do you use? Something lightweight and lacking in a lot of features is going to hold up for longer on a shared server than something like XenForo or IPB or VBulletin.

So it can be really cheap if you're after a simple forum with an audience that doesn't block ads and might be willing to spend a lot on subscriptions or donations. It can be really expensive if you're offering a live video chat microblogging/livestreaming service.

I've seen large forums with hundreds of thousands of posts on $5 a month hosting, and sites with about 50 users needing a dedicated server.

As an average user, why would I care whether that forum is online or distributed to my machine?

You usually don't. Until someone comes along as says "you can't say that" and removes your content, because you don't control it.

So, Usenet?

Yes, but for tech-illiterate millennials. Usenet has to be wrapped in various interfaces to make it usable/searchable, and usually shitty VPNs are hawked as add-on to help you avoid your ISP sending you nastygrams for downloading all of Sex and the City or whatever Marvel superhero movie is the current rage.

There's this place between "create their own curated content" and free-for-all "user generated content" that is "moderated & curated user generated content".

Isn't that imgur?

>Incentivize for the behavior you want.

This isn't as straightforward as it seems. It's kind of like that old quote, "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." If the behavior you want is there because people are just casually messing around for fake internet points, it will change when you compensate them. It's probably possible, but far from simple.

Well you manage the number. If your target is a high number of internet points your post will aim to maximize that.

[DELETED]

You could say it more formally as, "Many variables correlated to outcomes you want are not causes of those outcomes. When you intervene and change those variables, they cease to be correlated to the outcomes," but it's a bit verbose[0]. I've always read it to be not about measuring things, but about optimizing the wrong thing, because people will game the system. The concept is valid. What's your concern?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law#Expressions Turns out the original formulation was "Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes."

Right on the nail. To me personally, the moves Reddit has been doing the past couple years read as if they don't know exactly what Reddit should be or what they want it to be. I imagine it's not easy, Reddit is massive and somehow not quite killing it, but somehow it feels like there's a strange lack of focus.

The mobile version of the site doesn't work and they only just released a mobile app. That says it all about their lack of focus.

Android has at least a few very good reddit apps (including the open source Slide), they don't really need an official client.

The old i.Reddit.com works OK.

The new m.reddit.com fails after a few minutes, on each page.

> Give a cut of advertising revenue to the mods of successful, high quality subs.

No, oh no.

Why mods?

Cuts should go to users posting the content.

Maybe make it so that OC is rewarded [more], karma "farming" is discouraged, echo chambers don't become the only places with activity, and make sure that hiveminds do not drown out all other discussion. Otherwise Reddit just becomes the online cousin of mainstream media, and a more compelling rival will pop up sooner than later.

They could even reward gilded comments that start good discussions, and so on.

Do you want clickbait? Because that's how you get clickbait.

There's a big difference between how you think when you ask "Do I want this?" versus when you ask "Will people want this?". You shouldn't confuse these.

A lot of scams are based on confusing people about what they want vs. what they think others will want. First and foremost MLM-schemes. You convince yourself the product is good, because you hope to make money from it. Then you convince yourself you will make money from it because the product is so good, in a vicious circle.

> echo chambers don't become the only places with activity, and make sure that hiveminds do not drown out all other discussion

And do you have a proposal for how to achieve this, beyond the old "putting the right people in charge"?

> do you have a proposal for how to achieve this, beyond the old "putting the right people in charge"?

I was actually brainstorming over this – an alternative, or rather, something that builds upon the fundamentals of the Reddit/HN format – during a long drive today, and I think I did hit upon something that could be effective, and fun.

Now to polish up my idea and figure the best way to put it out there. :)

Mods are one of the reasons why the site is dying. Huge threads and valuable posts are constantly being deleted because a mod sees a few worthless comments and nukes everything instead of letting the community use the built-in vote mechanism to push these posts to the bottom of the site.

The current trend seems to be a mod locking a controversial thread and commenting 'some of the comments are unacceptable and we don't have time to babysit this'.

Which annoys everyone who didn't leave an unsavory comment and also begs the question - if you aren't into babysitting threads then what did you expect the role of a mod to actually be, and if there aren't enough mods why not get more?

It's because everyone wants into the content creation game.

It's odd because Youtube, Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu did it because it's about the same cost as paying the content creators. And then they own it.

Reddit is already getting their content for free. They should really just focus on improving community features.

Or just provide better targeted advertising... On Facebook you can advertise to people based on demographics, interests, behavior, etc.

On Reddit you can't even place an add on a specific subreddit if it's not one of the big ones.

> On Reddit you can't even place an add on a specific subreddit if it's not one of the big ones.

Would someone please confirm this? If true, wow.

Hi, I have ads running on three subreddits right now, the smallest one has only 1,460 readers. Considering the CTR (click-through rate) I guess putting ads on subreddits smaller than that might not be worth it, even if that ad has been live for over a week it's still at less than 400 impressions/views.

As a reference, I have an ad on the /r/programming/ as well with 678,120 readers, that one has 113,613 impressions/views during the same time period.

This is incorrect. I have placed ads on /r/postmates, which is a small subreddit. You can't target some of the really tiny ones because they lack volume. I think it also "remembers" which subreddits you've visits, and also uses that to target.

That said their ad targeting system is quite bad in other ways.

I just tried to place an ad for /r/pics and /r/gaming and had no problem getting to "pending ad approval"

EDIT: I'm an idiot.

> if it's not one of the big ones

I'm pretty sure r/pics and r/gaming are two of the biggest subreddits out there.

Those are huge subreddits, both around 12MM subscribers.

those are big ones

I think the problem is that most of Reddit's current 'content' isn't monetizable to the degree that they need it to be. In its current form, Reddit is mostly an aggregator of other sites' content, which makes that content much harder for Reddit to make money off of. Self-serve CPM and CPC ads will only get you so far in terms of revenue nowadays.

I run a company with an advertising based revenue model with seven figures of yearly revenue, and CPM isn't what the largest advertisers are looking for. Everyone wants custom created content now, and they pay high premiums for this type of content.

I love Reddit as a news aggregator, but I can see why they need an editorial and content team for revenue generation. I'm certain that most large user generated content sites like Snapchat and Facebook have writers and editors to help paying advertisers create content.

> Want to increase quality and revenue? Give a cut of advertising revenue to the mods of successful, high quality subs.

I've seen a lot of sites try this, and I'm trying it myself on my own site.

However, it can very easily go wrong. If you restrict it to mods (like said here), you incentivise them to only allow topics that advertisers might like (at the expense of the community). Or only topics which can get clicks from average Joes that pass by every now and then.

If you provide revenue sharing in general, you often then incentivise spam by giving people a reason to post as quickly as possible to get their ads up there. It's why Digitalpoint scrapped the idea; quality was in the gutter because of it.

It might work with Reddit. The cost of creating a new subreddit is zero, so people can move from poorly handled communities.

Reddit is struggling for money, but they have an amazing platform to test out ideas on. Out of their millions of users one person should be able to come up with a way to monetize the platform. Google did this with their ads: the most popular ads get rewarded.

If I was a moderator and I was given a list of options to generate revenue for Reddit (and myself or my community) I would have to consider it. Maybe I have a community that reviews widgets and I can link to stores that have the best deals for highly reviewed widgets. It is transparent to the community, gives everyone a good deal, and pays for Reddit.

Why the hell is [Netflix] making their own content when the entire point of the site is for [existing studios] to create the content?

On the other hand, you're not wrong. Just because it works for Netflix doesn't mean it CAN work for Reddit, or that Reddit can execute on the idea.

...but Netflix is an amazing example as to the value of a content aggregator/distributor turning their hand to content creation.

fake edit

Flower arrangement does sound pretty useless, but your comment reminds me of the "no brown m&m's story": http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/vanhalen.asp

Maybe they're a hippy rock band and instead of a pyrotechnician to light the shit out of the drummer, they need a flower arranger to nature the shit out of it, instead?

Because the second a better alternative appears, I'm going to switch to the alternative without hesitation. Having original content provides something that an alternative can never provide, especially if that original content is good.

One thing that bothers me about reddit already is the amount of blatant advertising in many subs where people review things. A few brands catch on early and everyone becomes a promoter, sometimes because the brand developed recognition, sometimes because of subversive marketing.

Reddit's community has largely alienated content providers with their strictly enforced "spam" rules.

Amusingly reddit's own policy are very anti-creator in the way you describe. Funny comment? yes. Self publication/promotion = no. You can be banned for submitting your own work. There are slues of marketers that have learned this the hard way.

I suspect that being owned by a traditional publishing operation is making them behave like one.

Because reddit feels the need to 'curate' everything they host. Can't have that free speech, yo. Someone's feelings might get hurt. Too dangerous.