[NotaSockPuppet8]

/g/ makes useful software on occasion for example. after 4chan pioneered webm as looping gif replacement (long before imgur doing the gifv thing) they made webmcam and webm4retards for example. The latter by its mere existence also highlighted github's overzealous application of community policies.

A bunch of indie games started their life there too.

And then there are derivative and mashup works like fanart, translations.

I only visit a few boards, so i'm probably missing a lot.

[pierrebai]

But we could apply the reverse Sturgeon's law: in any sufficiently large community, 1% of content will not be crap. 4chan is not special, it's just large.

[nickthemagicman]

Facebook is my counter example. Its the biggest social media site on the internet. Produces nothing that gets reified in the form of internet culture.

[internaut]

magicman, academia should study why Facebook is a sterile wasteland

4chan, Reddit and HN are Internet natives.

Facebook and Twitter are fucking tourists.

[nickthemagicman]

Facebook is what mainstream compares 4chan to. A nice safe sterile place. Good for family values and advertising.

[Vaskivo]

But it's size together with the temporary aspect of it's content greatly accelerates the iteration process, culling bad content and refining the good one.

[DarkLinkXXXX]

Actually, 8chan had webm embeds before 4chan (and with a higher size limit). They were first AFAIK, but maybe some smaller chan did it sooner.