Reddit users wouldn't care if Reddit went out of business? I find that hard to believe.
> Something will rise up to take your place that is more user friendly. The market will find a way.
Got any ideas? Nobody has come up with anything that works so far.
> I somehow strongly doubt that if the current paradigm of ad based revenue were to disappear overnight, that no one would figure out something to take it's place and that the internet would become a barren wasteland devoid of content.
What is this suspicion based on?
Sure they would. But if Reddit went out of business, a new Reddit would immediately take it's place. The value to be extracted from such a large user-base is too great for this niche to go unfilled. How that value would be extracted in an ad-free system is yet to be seen. But I have faith in human ingenuity.
>Got any ideas? Nobody has come up with anything that works so far.
That is precisely my point. No one has come up with any ideas so far because there is not sufficient incentive. The model that now exists makes money, so why would anyone try too hard to rock the boat? Sure there a few small bit players trying to change things. But these limited ideological efforts are completely different from the full brunt of a capitalist market seeking profits under constraints that completely disallow advertising.
I believe snowdrift.coop has a chance. (I'm a volunteer on the team).
Myspace, anyone?
It's just a matter of time before reddit dies as well. Unlike google or facebook, there's not much value that a user can extract from reddit.
Google with all their services still provide value to users.
Facebook, despite their privacy issues, still provides something of value to their users.
What does reddit provide which can't be done by an alternative?
Exactly this. The entitlement jedberg shows here, to be able to show ads on a link aggregator (of all useless things) is astonishing.
This crosses into personal attack and namecalling. Those things are against the HN guidelines. Would you please (re-)read them, and follow them when commenting here?
I somehow strongly doubt that if the current paradigm of ad based revenue were to disappear overnight, that no one would figure out something to take it's place and that the internet would become a barren wasteland devoid of content. As it is now, there is zero incentive for content developers to look for any other solution because the status quo is so ingrained in people's minds that we have just accepted it as "the way things are". This is very clearly starting to change, and so yes, there will be collateral damage in the mean time. But the Web that emerges from this change will be better for everyone involved.