I think whenever you start using terms like "conservative" or "liberal" as disparagements, like /r/politics or Fox News, respectively, you've immediately fallen so far into an echo chamber that you'll have a hard time having any kind of reasonable discussion with anyone.

>Upvotes and downvotes turn the comment section into a competition to control the message, and the way comments are organized buries thoughtful posts that came a bit late, after a period of reflection. It also emphasizes junk and fluff that is easy to process and hides effort posts.

I've only started noticing this recently. In the midst of all the recent drama I've been distancing myself from Reddit and have noticed that in my ~30k karma, it's 99% jokes and one-liners, and I'd started thinking in that manner when commenting on Reddit because I wanted the meaningless internet points. I'd stopped, for the most part, trying to engage in any kind of real discussion because a one-sentence jab could net me more of a commodity I kept telling myself I don't care about. I'm an intelligent guy and have always considered myself pretty thoughtful but I noticed that the way the Reddit system works it really took my edge off. I'm sure plenty of factors in my life and mind are to blame, but I've become much more intellectually apathetic over the past two years and I think my own rearranging of my interactions online to conform to "the hivemind" as they say, really contributed to it.

I've posted all of four comments so far on hubski and feel like I've put more thought into those than I have in the past year's worth of reddit comments I made.

None of this to say reddit is inherently bad in any way, and I still plan on visiting the smaller subs like /r/Scuba and /r/Morrowind, but I don't think it was a super healthy place, mentally, for me to be all the damn time.

I feel like they'll be able to claim exactly that. Just look at the issues with people modifying the hardware in gaming consoles. Even without proof that they were cheating or pirating games, it's been made illegal to modify something that you should, in a sane business model, own.

This kind of thing is exactly why the free software movement is so important. People look at free software advocates like they're crazy (and to be fair RMS might be but that's beside the point), but the point of free software is to avoid exactly this kind of mess, where producers can claim ownership of things that we've purchased wholesale in the name of "licensing." Seriously, this kind of business practice is a problem.

"The paradox of work is that many people hate their jobs, but they are considerably more miserable doing nothing."

I know the feeling. The restaurant I work for shut down for a week due to historicly low sales in this period, and I've already gotten a bit bored of not working. However, it's because I legitimately (my own fault) did nothing. Given a longer time span I'm sure I would have started focusing my energies into something creative or any number of hobbies that I wouldn't have considered otherwise. So long as our needs are met as humans there's a billion ways to feel satisfied without work. Build something, create something new, see something you never have before. I really think I'd travel, given the time to do so, and assuming the "post-work" world gave me the means, in whatever way.

I really like the NPR analogy. They manage to support themselves (in some places) entirely on donations and provide extremely high quality programming without denying any kind of "premium content" to non-paying listeners (no, WVYA, two CDs of classical music isn't "premium content," I'm donating because I like your station, but thanks.)

I think Reddit had a good model in regards to revenue generation (nonintrusive adspace on the page and donations via gilding, although I don't like the idea of locking out site features for non-gilded members. The biggest issue they've run into so far is taking the profiteering a tad too far and now they're running into issues of trying to monetize celebrity interviews and the like.

I dunno, I like the idea of running a site entirely on donations, and if this site turns out to be something I revisit regularly, I would agree with Steve and definitely be on board for an optional regular monthly donation. I just wouldn't necessarily want "premium features" for paying members, the content itself should be enough to sell people on the donations, NPR and PBS have existed for a long while on that same business model. In PA, for instance, we have no subsidies for public broadcasting and the NPR stations here are still very successful and my and a lot of people's favorite stations.