Thanks for articulating what I meant by the social contract, Simon. I feel the same way, which is why I wrote the post.

General reply to other comments: y'all are right, the post is short and doesn't flesh out all the arguments necessary. But I think I captured the spirit of something about how we, the creators on the Internet, feel about the bargain we strike when we invest in sites like Reddit or Twitter or indeed, Hacker News here.