[cocktailpeanuts]

As an early fan of ProductHunt I became saddened to watch their community get diluted and become more of a place for "growth hackers" to hang out than people who actually make things.

But I also realize this was because they raised tons of money and was under heavy pressure to get traction at any cost.

So I think this can be a good news, now that they can just let go and focus on the startup community instead of artificially trying to grow

[moeamaya]

The tough thing about running a maker community is makers don't want to sit around all day to browse products and comment. But you know who does? Growth Hackers.

I say this coming from my own experience growing a community of hardware hackers who have even less of an inclination to chat since they aren't always in front of a computer.

[visakanv]

You just hit on one of the fundamental reasons why all online communities tend towards toxicity – the people who have the most time and energy to invest in discussions (which eventually snowball into flame wars) are the people who aren't actually doing the actual work.

These things then feed off of themselves – in a sociopolitical 'guardian' type community (/r/atheism, /r/childfree, etc etc) it ends up becoming highly caustic towards the outgroup with everyone competing for in-group status points, while in a 'trader' type community (/r/entrepreneur, /r/marketing), you end up getting flooded by shysters and self-promoters.

The moderates shake their heads and leave, and you're left with the inmates running the asylum.

[nostrademons]

This is more true of communities built around ideas rather than activities, and there are also moderating tactics you can use to avoid it. For example, online communities based around astronomy, or radio-controlled airplanes, or baking, or other hobbies remain relatively healthy even decades after their founding.

Also there are communities around conventionally caustic topics (eg. Lambda: The Ultimate for programming language design, Penny Arcade for games) that manage to survive for a decade+ with no loss of quality because of moderation policies. For example, L:tU has an "avoiding ungrounded discussion" policy - every thread must be centered around discussion of a published academic paper, which first of all keeps the focus on people who actually do work, and second of all discourages everyone without the background to read and understand academic papers.

[jballanc]

I don't understand how people constantly miss the most obvious solution to keeping a community grounded: charge an entry fee.

[bbaumgar]

Could you point to some examples where this has worked? It seems that the entry fee would either 1. limit the community's growth severely (not necessarily a bad thing), or 2. filter out good candidates.

[rfrank]

SomethingAwful's forums required a paid membership and have been around a long time. IMO one of the points of a paid model is keeping membership down to people who actually care enough to pay said membership.

[shrikant]

In addition to the examples posted, this model also worked well for MetaFilter. Some of the highest quality online discussions I've seen.

[stevewilhelm]

TED and ACM

https://www.ted.com/ http://www.acm.org/

[Spivak]

I would think that LWN is a good example.

[MarcBodnick]

What are examples where this has worked? MetaFilter is one, but very small.

[xiaoma]

That doesn't work at all. Just look at sponsored posts on pretty much any publication/blog/forum. Every single one is paid and they race for the lowest tolerated behavior.

[bjelkeman-again]

Good moderation works well IMHO.

[kristianc]

This is what has killed Twitter. Both social justice Twitter and right-wing Twitter revolve around competing for status-points, and backslapping (the latest trend is linking to other people's egotistical tweetstorms along with a comment like 'This' or 'Thread'.

Very little challenge of ideas takes place - either from within communities or from outside. The whole thing has become a Wittgensteinian language game where people compete to praise or denounce the latest political trend in the most caustic or verbose way. It's tiresome and offputting to people unwilling to subjugate their entire online persona to their identity.

[alexjv89]

stop following a lot of people and twitter will be substantially better.

[pryelluw]

I still find value on Twitter. The problems you define are real, but that means you have to dig a little deeper to connect with good people.

[bsenftner]

I think you have outlined the basic issue with human social interactions of any size greater than 3 people.

[pcmaffey]

> the people who have the most time and energy to invest in discussions (which eventually snowball into flame wars) are the people who aren't actually doing the actual work.

Pretty sure we've reached peak-discussion. Future online communities will be based primarily on activity.

[double0jimb0]

Interesting analysis, seems to explain my personal observations.

Only wrinkle I'd propose: The "moderates", or any of the characters you define, aren't fixed, and personal circumstance often colors which role one plays at any given time.

[henrygrew]

A very interesting point of view, what do you think can be done to counter this outcome.

[jfktrey]

What if you made community contribution a limited resource?

Continuing the reddit example. You could limit contribution by three routes:

1) Limiting the number of posts. For example, 3 posts per week, max.

2) Limiting the visibility of posts. The more you post, the less an upvote counts. Effective Upvote Value = 1 / (posts this week)

3) Limiting the visibility of posts based on post quality. The more you post in a week and the lower your per-post average karma, the less an upvote counts. Effective Upvote Value = (per-post average karma) / (posts this week)

Just a thought.

[ComputerGuru]

3) Limiting the visibility of posts based on post quality. The more you post in a week and the lower your per-post average karma, the less an upvote counts. Effective Upvote Value = (per-post average karma) / (posts this week)

You probably weren't around for it, but HN experimented with something like this where each commenter's running average point tally for the last X posts or Y time was visible on their profile and indirectly visible on each of their comments. Their name (comment?) would appear in a different (darker?) shade the higher their running average.

I personally liked it, but it was rolled back after a couple of months. I think people became afraid to make replies that wouldn't accumulate up votes, and I know I wouldn't reply to threads if someone commented a day later because "it wasn't worth it."

[rhizome]

HN has "you're posting too fast!" per-user rate limiting.

[xiaoma]

Github managed to escape that dynamic up until the last couple of years.

[ci5er]

> Growth Hackers

Based on its usage in these last two comments, I think I must not understand what the phrase "Growth Hacker" means. I thought it was someone who was critically focused on increasing the numerator and decreasing the denominator in various SaaS KPIs. You don't seem to be using it that way. Is this a new job title in the Bay Area? Or, more generally: would you define this phrase for me?

[brazzledazzle]

I think they mean the people that are basically marketers/sales people who aren't creators and despite often thinking so aren't visionaries either. The type of person that "just needs someone to do that nerd shit" and they'll turn it into a huge success. Like the two guys that flew from London to show up Justin Kan's house uninvited.

Which isn't to say that can't be successful. With a piece of shit MVP coded by the winning bidder, some slick design, a good sales pitch and a ton of luck you might just get enough money to pay a real programmer enough to develop something that can actually get some serious investor cash which you can use to rewrite it yet again to get a real product that can scale.

[ci5er]

I think I know the kind you are talking about. They show up on Quora wondering how they can get a co-founder to do all the tech work for 30% of the company -- IF they can find someone who won't balk at signing an NDA to get a glimpse at their super-duper amazing idea. Thanks!

[mighty_atomic_c]

I'm unfamiliar with the term "growth hacker". I get the impression that it means marketing and sales. What I've read so far seems to indicate that, us that an inaccurate impression?

[Cbeck527]

I agree-

I stopped going back after I realized it was a homogeneous group (read: white dudes connected to VCs) patting each other on the back for releasing half-baked MVPs. I was really turned-off by that.

That said, I think it's slowly changing for the better (rigging allegations aside) since I last took a look a year or so ago. I received a small amount of traction after submitting a stupid iMessage sticker pack I built. I was still pretty salty when I submitted it, but was curious to see if the exclusivity had loosened up a little bit. It had!

As someone who occasionally builds silly apps it's cool to share them with a community of makers, but I don't think PH fits the bill anymore. Maybe the acquisition will allow them to re-focus?

[DonHopkins]

I think there's a much more accurate metaphor about what they're doing to each other than "patting each other on the back". [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMeqEDEfniA

[birracerveza]

>white dudes connected to VCs

Stop being racist. What does being white have to do with any of it?

[jyriand]

I don't think every statement that mentions 'white' or 'black' should be considered racist.

[DonHopkins]

I totally agree with you, but in birracerveza's dead comment he strongly disagrees without offering any explanation: "He is explaining the reason that he stopped going, and bringing race into the mix. That is racism."

No, that is not racism, but "many people" think that way because they have been wrongly taught to believe that any mention of race is racism, which is incorrect.

And birracerveza is one of those "many people" who really need to educate themselves by reading up on the topic of racism, starting with "Mentioning Race Doesn't Make You a Racist [1]", and continuing on to wikipedia [2] to learn what racism really is.

Hint: Ask yourself if Cbeck527 systematically oppressed anyone by "stopping going" or "bringing race into the mix"?

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sex-dawn/201001/mention...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism

[telemele]

"white dudes connected to VCs"

It's not about race. It's about class. The "connected" part is what matters, not the "white dude" part.

Your average 99%er white dude does not get funded in Silicon Valley. He gets asked where he "summers" and then walks out confused.

What matters in Silicon Valley is being wealthy and having attended the right school. Being connected matters more than anything.

The only thing that makes it somewhat meritocratic is that real success is undeniable and even unconnected people can find ways to succeed without help.

[Cbeck527]

I see your point, but don't necessarily agree 100%.

Regardless, I was calling it as I saw it at the time. Checking out the comment section of a few posts on PH's front page today, it looks like my evaluation still stands. Though my classification may be hyper-specific, my main point is it's a microcosm (stereotype?) of the echo chamber.

[jondubois]

Maybe race and gender play a small part but I agree that it has a lot more to do with class and connections.

I don't know what it takes to get into the Silicon Valley upper class, but hard, quality work isn't it.

My best guess is that you have to be great at kissing ass. SV hates jerks, but loves hypocrites.

It's not about what you are, it's about how you come across (in a very primitive, superficial way).

[lacampbell]

I don't know why many people operate under the delusion that the value of their work is the same as how valuable you are perceived. Not to say that there's no correlation, but it's just part of the equation.

People pay a premium for doing business with other people that they like. It's perfectly logical - we all want our daily interactions to be pleasant ones, and would much rather work with people we like than people we find distasteful.

It's completely counter-productive to frame this as everyone else just being superficial ass-kissing hypocrites.

[brazzledazzle]

You're right, it's less about ass kissing and more about cultural fit which is kind of a dog whistle but not exactly since you can hang if you're a "cool" Indian dude who drinks beer and plays ping pong, beer pong or foosball and doesn't smell funny.

[visakanv]

> As an early fan of ProductHunt I became saddened to watch their community get diluted and become more of a place for "growth hackers" to hang out than people who actually make things.

This is the inevitable fate of all communities. I've seen it happen so many times and I've seen so many discussions about it over and over again that I've begun to consolidate my thoughts and relevant links about it on this URL: http://visakanv.com/blog/communities

> So I think this can be a good news, now that they can just let go and focus on the startup community instead of artificially trying to grow

I hope so too, but realistically I don't think any community that gets diluted can get un-diluted. Reddit, Quora, HN, whatever the place – one you drive away the quality, it seldom comes back. PH will just have a new set of pressures on them now. I wish them the best, just as I wish any community founder / maintainer the best, because a high-quality community is one of the most precious things on this Earth. Alas... it never lasts.

[devinhelton]

> This is the inevitable fate of all communities. I've seen it happen so many times and I've seen so many discussions about it over and over again that I've begun to consolidate my thoughts and relevant links about it on this URL: http://visakanv.com/blog/communities

And there just went an hour of my time :-) Good collection of posts.

[transposed]

Interesting reads, thanks for sharing. I wonder if mimicking any of the time tested, real life, community building techniques would work. Like if you examined religion or the university structure maybe there would be more things you could replicate online. Reddit already has subs where you need to upload pictures of your diploma.

[brazzledazzle]

You could start an internet religion and instead of tithing some percentage of your salary you donate CPU time for Bitcoin mining.

[ThomPete]

What on earth would you need funding for when you do a site like Product Hunt? That makes no sense.

[Alex3917]

> What on earth would you need funding for when you do a site like Product Hunt?

Because even though there are 300,000 - 500,000 new consumer products launched in the U.S. each year, 99% are generic commodities like a new kind of 2% milk or whatever. The number of new products that are actually interesting is very small, which means that there is a very high cost of discovering and reaching out to enough of these product makers to make the site viable.

C.f. why I shut down my previous startup: https://www.fwdeveryone.com/t/-Gk8HmiRSZ-mrUxE0rH3SQ/deadpoo...

It's definitely possible to do something successful in this space, but not as a bootstrapped startup. The AngelList acquisition makes perfect sense, because they can share the cost of leadgen while creating the opportunity to meet a wide range of founders' needs. There is a big opportunity here if someone is able to come in and execute a rollup and IPO, but those are extremely tricky to pull off.

[philipodonnell]

While true, I don't know that is the role that Product Hunt is actually playing. The curated nature means that highly placed products were defined more by what VCs and those connected to VCs wanted to feature, which (naturally) tended to be things they invested in or wanted to do the founder a favor instead of things that were "actually interesting".

Once you have categories called 'Slack', 'Amazon' and 'Netflix' as maybe half the current top products do, you've sort of given up your claim to being primarily focused on helping startups.

[double0jimb0]

Because even though there are 300,000 - 500,000 new consumer products launched in the U.S. each year, 99% are generic commodities like a new kind of 2% milk or whatever. The number of new products that are actually interesting is very small, which means that there is a very high cost of discovering and reaching out to enough of these product makers to make the site viable.

and from your letter:

The typical budget of a new specialty food product is 30k - 100k per year total, and almost all of that is allocated for manufacturing/distribution/development/salaries, so the marketing budget at these companies is basically zero.

You've got some unstated/hidden assumptions that I am trying to illuminate.

Why do you believe the actually selling and distribution method of a new product doesn't fall into the list of "critical things founders need to know how to do to have a successful business" and instead can be outsourced?

You built a "selling" product for founders who don't know how "to sell" in the first place, I don't think there should be surprise that it failed. Just my .02

[Alex3917]

It wasn't a sales product, we were hosting events to connect startups with bloggers, and also building scaleable promotion tools.

The issue with the food space is that most new products start out at their local farmers market, then get into Whole Foods, and then maybe attend the Fancy Food Show. And that's it for a long time. Trying to displace any of those channels is basically impossible. Building an additional channel is possible, but in addition to needing an exceedingly good cost/benefit ratio, you also need a very large source of targeted inexpensive leads.

[michaelbuckbee]

If you consider them as they are today (a niche site in the tech space) it 100% doesn't make sense.

If you think of it as funding to try and expand the site and topics and community into something much larger it makes considerably more sense.

[fudged71]

Because they had no significant revenue, didn't have anything personal to invest into it, and were in a community surrounded by investors. I agree, it doesn't make much sense.

[tedmiston]

You need a team to curate and engineers / product folk to build the product. Web app, mobile apps, Chrome extensions, ...

[dceddia]

Curious about this myself. Marketing? Ads?

[ThomPete]

Well thats the thing though. Angel List got of the ground because it had some solid names behind it, can't remember if Product Hunt is the same. Did he do something before?

I understand there can be things like server cost and development etc. and if you want to do it quickly you need to build faster. But it just seems so unnecessary to me.

[calchris42]

Seriously. I've only recently started following Product Hunt, but at least for it's email updates, it seems to heavily focus on companies that are pretty far from "startup". Most recent featured products are from Netflix, Facebook, Instagram, AirBnB, Snapchat. These are hardly young startups in desperate need of attention for product announcements.

[tlogan]

Maybe I'm late in the game but Product Hunt was never about finding some new and useful product I might use or buy. And why would be? They also clearly say: "Discover the latest mobile apps, websites, and technology products that everyone's talking about." The keyword here is "talking about".

Now, "growth hackers" ended up believing that being popular on product hunt will get you customers. No - it will not. People who are reading and following Product Hunt are VC - and that is why acquisition by AngelList is an excellent move.

[shellehs]

I look PH as a very good place to promote products, and it's born to promote products. No matter it's a good or bad product, they all don't want to miss a chance to reach their customers.

> True users vote for USEFUL and/or LOVELY products for themselves, growth hackers try their best to drive users vote for specific products.

I can't see that's good or evil, growth hacking may hurt the community, or may bring a lot of users and traffic in a short period.

And I think every community has possibility to become a place for growth hackers if it needs to attract more users and grow bigger.

Just like every corner has possibility to become a place for advertisements. If I don't like it, I just ignore it. And that also makes opportunity for competitors or products like ad-block to stand out.

Anyway I love PH and really feel sad for the acquisition.

[pc86]

> So I think this can be a good news, now that they can just let go and focus on the startup community instead of artificially trying to grow

Well, I've never heard the term "growth hacker" used unironically outside of startups (honestly even SV specifically) so I don't think that's likely.

And AngelList needs to recoup their millions somehow. How often is a product acquired and all the investment-round cruft and garbage suddenly disappeared? Doesn't it usually just get worse?