[cookiecaper]

All of these alternatives are going to run into this same kind of trouble unless they have real financial backing, because the incentive to switch is just not there for most users. New users have to be brought in, which is very expensive, and the community will almost certainly have to be salted with astroturf, as reddit was in days of yore.

Over the years I've been surprised at the "stickiness" of user habits. They can have every reason to switch to another site and still refuse to do so, preferring the old habit. Communities do occasionally move, but it's hard to make it happen.

The other issue is that reddit is an inlet, a way for communities to get traffic and find each other. This is partially because of the inadequacy of search engines like Google, which have been thoroughly gamed for the last decade or so, such that they almost always prefer crappy, highly-commercialized results that have been "SEO-optimized" v. organic, real-person-generated content.

A reddit competitor would need to address a) user stickiness, and unwillingness to give up old habits; and b) supply a stable quantity of new users to keep the community active and alive.

Do bear in mind that reddit itself generally has a reputation as a "dark corner of the internet" in the public mind. There is probably room for something more widely accessible if it can somehow control the user intake and avoid an "anything goes" atmosphere.