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Re:Ask HN: Why is it assumed to be harder to bootstrap a Red... by mikequinlan on Saturday July 15, 2023 @02:47PM (#36739772)
How do you get millions of people to decide to stop going to whichever site they are currently going to and go to your site instead?
Re:Ask HN: Why is it assumed to be harder to bootstrap a Red... by mustafa_pasi on Saturday July 15, 2023 @02:55PM (#36739837)
It doesn't have to be millions. What if profit is not a motivation? What if you just want to be the host of some good communities or a less toxic web2.0 experience?
Re:Ask HN: Why is it assumed to be harder to bootstrap a Red... by mikequinlan on Saturday July 15, 2023 @03:02PM (#36739915)
On Reddit I mainly participate in the subreddit for my town. The town subreddit has 50,000 members; the town plus neighboring towns has a total population of about 900,000. How will you get enough participants for it to be worthwhile for me to switch?

r/Compilers has about 14,000 members. Again, how will you find that many people willing to contribute on that topic to make it worthwhile?

r/ProgrammingLanguages has about 90,000 members.

You have a chicken and egg problem -- until you have enough actively participating members, there is no benefit to moving.

Re:Ask HN: Why is it assumed to be harder to bootstrap a Red... by the-printer on Saturday July 15, 2023 @03:12PM (#36739983)
Unless you don’t have anything indicative of a community already in place then this isn’t a sound enough motive.
Re:Ask HN: Why is it assumed to be harder to bootstrap a Red... by WheelsAtLarge on Saturday July 15, 2023 @04:17PM (#36740564)
It's hard. I read somewhere that a new product must be at least 10 times better than the original for users to switch over.

I wonder how that translates to creating a new Reddit?

Re:Ask HN: Why is it assumed to be harder to bootstrap a Red... by mikequinlan on Saturday July 15, 2023 @04:20PM (#36740587)
It is very hard to start a new subreddit. You have to somehow initially get enough people to join and participate to create enough posts and conversations to get other people interested in joining.
Re:Ask HN: Why is it assumed to be harder to bootstrap a Red... by Gtex555 on Sunday July 16, 2023 @04:42PM (#36751205)
chicken and the egg problem
Re:Ask HN: Why is it assumed to be harder to bootstrap a Red... by ttymck on Sunday July 16, 2023 @01:41AM (#36744026)
> new product must be at least 10 times better than the original for users to switch over.

Which product manager told you this? How does one measure how much "better" a product is than another? How does one then measure "willingness" to switch?

Nevertheless, if reddit gets "10x worse", isn't that where the opportunity lies?

Re:Ask HN: Why is it assumed to be harder to bootstrap a Red... by EA-3167 on Saturday July 15, 2023 @06:07PM (#36741385)
The snarky voice in my head says, "Sell it to Elon Musk."

More realistically though the truth is that mismanagement, changing circumstances and incentives (Reddit shifting from open platform to IPO prep for example), and a lack of innovation to keep up with changing demands all stand as risks to an existing platform. Arguably your job isn't to convince millions to drop their old site, it's to strike when said site does that themselves.

If there had been a working, scaled, viable alternative to Reddit last month... Reddit would no longer exist.

Re:Ask HN: Why is it assumed to be harder to bootstrap a Red... by ActorNightly on Sunday July 16, 2023 @03:21AM (#36744434)
Basically create a website that has some monetary rewards for participation, tied with some mechanics that leverage trading, FOMO and gambling.

If you need proof this (i.e participating for a shot at monetary reward) works, look back at when Valve first implemented the ability to trade cosmetics with TF2, and look at how that evolved.

Its actually simple enough to where Im surprised this hasn't been done already considering this happened https://finematics.com/vampire-attack-sushiswap-explained/

Re:Ask HN: Why is it assumed to be harder to bootstrap a Red... by ManlyBread on Sunday July 16, 2023 @05:16AM (#36745025)
That's a great way to get large amount of people who are interested in exploiting your site for profit while getting no genuine users whatsoever.
Re:Ask HN: Why is it assumed to be harder to bootstrap a Red... by Lk7Of3vfJS2n on Sunday July 16, 2023 @08:55AM (#36746477)
What's your definition of a genuine user?
Re:Ask HN: Why is it assumed to be harder to bootstrap a Red... by mikequinlan on Sunday July 16, 2023 @09:14AM (#36746643)
One that isn't a bot and isn't a scammer or spammer.
Re:Ask HN: Why is it assumed to be harder to bootstrap a Red... by ActorNightly on Monday July 17, 2023 @03:04AM (#36754999)
When I say create a website, I don't mean hire some fresh grads to write some basic crypto blockchain on top of reddit.

You of course need to design the system to be secure. You can do this in a number of ways.