[stavrianos]

We could fight about the actual value of the CPU, HDD, network, etc is. Not literally zero. The manpower to keep it running is a stronger argument, but I still think it's missing the point. The real value is the community generated content, and yeah, that's a commons.

[hinkley]

Subtract the fact that at least the serfs got to keep some of the net product of their labor while Reddit users get less than nothing and I think it all evens out.

[sigstoat]

> while Reddit users get less than nothing

those poor bastards, all chained to their computers, joylessly creating content for their overlords.

[vitiral]

That's actually pretty descriptive.

[lotsofpulp]

Reddit users get less than nothing? Then why were they using Reddit’s computers in the first place?

[hinkley]

From the owners. Everything they get is from the other users, and the moderators.

Unless you enjoy ads. I mean occasionally they are funny.

[lost_tourist]

that value means nothing to the owners if they aren't making a profit. Nothing in life is free except parents' love.

[MichaelZuo]

> The real value is the community generated content, and yeah, that's a commons.

According to which court or government?

I'm not familiar with every country, but I don't think a single G20 country or the UN has spelled out anything like that.

[stavrianos]

I was absolutely not using the term in a legal sense. Is "commons" even a legal term? I suppose I should have said "should be a commons" - as in, a publicly generated and maintained 'good thing' (susceptible to tragedy).

[MichaelZuo]

Okay, it's certainly an interesting idea to speculate about, maybe some country will recognize it in the future. Though it seems unlikely, unless most of the world agreed, considering WIPO and various other treaties which have been ratified.

How is this relevant to the present issue regarding reddit?

[stavrianos]

In regards to the idea of reddit rent-seeking - the primary value of reddit is not something they create, it's something they _host_. It could be anywhere, but by dint of network effects, it happens to be there. Reddit is not valuable because it owns a serverfarm, or even because it employs people to maintain the serverfarm. It's valuable because it controls a cultural meetingpoint.

Aggressive control of the meetingpoint (which it is able to do), is rent-seeking because reddit controls _access_ to the value, but does not create the value. You were making a point that reddit doesn't provide literally nothing. That's true, but it's a red herring. Reddit provides some things, but not the actually-important things.

edit: I'm sorry, you were not making that point. I was responding to that point.

[lotsofpulp]

> Reddit is not valuable because it owns a serverfarm, or even because it employs people to maintain the serverfarm. It's valuable because it controls a cultural meetingpoint.

How did it come to control a cultural meeting point? Was it because they owned a server farm and employed people to create a website people wanted to use at the right time and the right place?

> Reddit provides some things, but not the actually-important things.

This will be easily proven by people moving from Reddit to an alternative. Or disproven by not moving to an alternative.

[stavrianos]

> This will be easily proven by people moving from Reddit to an alternative. Or disproven by not moving to an alternative.

This ignores the nature of network effects. The value of the thing is precisely that other people are using it. That's not a value that's created by reddit, it's a value that's _exploited_ by reddit.

"Just go somewhere else" requires either a phenomenal degree of coordination, OR to just bite the bullet that not everyone will move to the same place at the same time, which fragments the community (which was, again, the bulk of the value in the first place).

The difficulty of network effects is that, as the group gets larger, the value goes up faster than linear AND the cost of coordinating a migration ALSO goes up faster than linear. A gathering that's 1/10th the size, isn't worth 1/10th as much. It's _significantly_ weaker. And migrating en-mass is an n^2 coordination problem. It's closer to a hostage situation than it is to a value-add.

> How did it come to control a cultural meeting point? Was it because they owned a server farm and employed people to create a website people wanted to use at the right time and the right place?

Kinda don't care? Maybe they worked hard for it, even. Does that justify indefinite control of an important resource? Legally probably, but you can tell I think it shouldn't.

[lmm]

Funnily enough the Reddit community originally started on Digg and moved there after Digg shot themselves in the foot in a similar way to what Reddit is currently doing. So while Reddit now is a lot bigger and more entrenched than Digg then, I wouldn't be at all surprised if history repeated.