I have a blog. Let’s say I wanted to let people comment on my blog posts. One day, I get a ton of “I just made $X from my couch!” type comments. My readers try to discuss my latest post, but the spam is suffocating the conversation.

What can I do? They’re not saying anything illegal. If I delete the spam or add some sort of filter, I’m now a “publisher” and liable for every comment my readers make. But if I leave them up, my readers will be frustrated that they can’t have a real discussion.

So I don’t have comments. I really want discussions with my readers, but it’s just not worth the risk.

Now imagine this happening to every website. Every community. Hacker News as we know it wouldn’t exist — probably no voting and certainly no moderation. The whole Internet would turn into a cesspool of spam and flame wars. Many apps wouldn’t even exist in the first place.

All because we decided to enforce this entirely arbitrary “publisher vs. platform” dichotomy.