[stalfosknight]

Perhaps this is a more a reflection of our current state of development as a species than a mistake we consciously chose to make. As gross as Reddit's behavior has been, it doesn't change the reality that nothing at all in this scarcity-based economy is free.

[bbor]

“Is capitalism at fault? No, surely it’s the kids!”

[TechBro8615]

Communist Cuba doesn't have a social network, but they do have a "sneakernet" [0]:

> El Paquete Semanal ("The Weekly Package") or El Paquete is a one terabyte collection of digital material distributed since around 2008 on the underground market in Cuba as a substitute for broadband Internet. Since 2015, it has been the primary source of entertainment for millions of Cubans

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paquete_Semanal

[paulmd]

Join the original decentralized social network! Old men in their basement want to know your QTH!

https://botsin.space/@aregsstv/110553041714602525

[bbor]

Lol thanks for the reminder TechBro8615. I don't really want to argue about communism being inherently authoritarian on here :) I was just responding to the parent comment, who was (to some extent) dismissing the ancestor:

> We formed connections and communities and friendships on sites like Facebook and Twitter and Reddit, but those companies need to make money, so those connections are only allowed to exist as long as they are part of a profitable system. How awful it is to reduce human connection to that. To think that I am only allowed to maintain certain social connections as long as they continue to produce monetary value for an intermediary. An awful, awful mistake.

I think we can agree that there are ways we could organize social media that are neither governed by the intense profit expectations of VCs, nor the work of Communist satan magic. For example, government funded!

[stalfosknight]

I was not dismissing anyone. I was suggesting that it's not unreasonable for Reddit to want to be a profitable business even though how they're going about it is rather questionable.

There exists a reasonable middle ground somewhere between /u/spez's ridiculous terms and this idea that many seem to have that 3rd party apps and/or users deserve a free ride. You can blame capitalism if you like but I don't believe there is a superior alternative until we reach the point where we have a Star Trek-like post-scarcity economy of some kind.