Re:Reddit is still in turmoil
by vintermann on Friday July 22, 2016 @02:56AM
(#12142134)
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.)
Re:Reddit is still in turmoil
by nommm-nommm on Friday July 22, 2016 @09:09AM
(#12143264)
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.
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.