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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  4075 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The Features That Doom Reddit To Perpetual Mutiny

It's not mutiny, it's survival of the fittest.

Alexis and Steve are diehard libertarians. The site is built around the premise that social darwinism will provide the most efficient solution to any problem. Thus, subreddits and the near-total lack of Admin involvement in them… except when the money bitches (Sears), crime is imminent (violentacrez modding the CIRCLEJERKERS in /r/jailbait) or bad press is threatened (/r/creepshots). Hell - as soon as Adrien Chen putted Violentacrez, Yishan Wong announced the admins were pulling out of /r/modtalk - essentially saying "you're on your own, suckaz."

So what you're left with isn't The HMS Bounty, it's Bartertown.

It would take fifteen to twenty minutes for any average social psychologist to look at the makeup of Reddit and recoil in horror. The sad thing is I've been arguing with them for five years now about ways to scale back the brutality and every suggestion I've ever made has gotten a nod, a grin and a cold shoulder. Yet they keep asking.





forwardslash  ·  4072 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Alexis and Steve are diehard libertarians. The site is built around the premise that social darwinism will provide the most efficient solution to any problem.

It took me longer than it probably should have to realize this. It should have been as bright as day when the answer to any grievance or criticism of subreddits was, "You can always start your own."

Cortez  ·  4072 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Wow this makes so much sense now, could we say Reddit is an experiment in libertarianism?

kleinbl00  ·  4072 days ago  ·  link  ·  

probably more accurate to describe it as an extraordinarily profitable senior project.

Cortez  ·  4072 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Has it made any profit yet?

kleinbl00  ·  4072 days ago  ·  link  ·  

For Alexis and Steve? Fuck yeah. Best guess is Reddit sold for $6m. Typically the founders of startups corner about 30%. That means each one of them walked away with a shade under a million dollars.

Cortez  ·  4072 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Holy shit.