I saw this today, I was like, woah. Honestly I've been expecting something similar for a long while. The dude went on a ridiculous hiatus, then just started messing with users, then suddenly became a good guy and started moderating again. It was all a pretty good indicator something was up.
I wonder what this will mean, long term, for the community there? will anything change? will nothing change?
nothing much. m00t has been trying to disassociate from 4 Chan for a while now. plus, /b/ is no longer frequented by the people that made it the legend that it is. 4 Chan really only has a few decent niche boards at this point. /b/ isn't really a "community" anymore as much as it's "this place I heard was crazy on the internet" cp and trap threads.
you don't even see that many cheese pizza threads much anymore either.
Because he kept trying to make 4chan into something that it isn't. He was trying to make 4chan more people-friendly, and that's like putting flowers on a cesspit. I'm glad to see him go, but I don't know how the new owners will treat it. The site is too big for its own good.
In any case, moot has in the past attempted to make 4chan more people-friendly for the very good reason that when something especially bad happens on the site, it's moot that gets dragged in to talk about it in court. That website has been lucky to have him. Unfortunately. Because without competent leadership it probably wouldn't still exist, which would be great.
I'd heard he wanted to make it profitable. Not just cam-whore banner-ad profitable, but a legit social media site, the route of twitter, facebook, etc. Here's where I'd make a list of the issues in facilitating that kind of a transition, but I don't really know where to start.
Right? It's cracking me up that the only actual news source of 4chan is 4chan, which doesn't bode well for truth in general. But yeah, he provided (past tense???) an actual service. Unfortunately, the very nature of this service has been proven unprofitable, right? The real question is "When will mk accept my money?"(again, I think)