[randomdata]

> This US government could easily afford to host Reddit.

I imagine the government has access to a lot more runway. Government is ideally suited to hosting capital intensive projects for that reason. But the piper needs to be paid eventually. Government isn't magical. It still has to deliver value in return for the value it takes.

This is not just theoretical. In the real world, governments that have failed to deliver sufficient value in return have fallen. In fact, that has happened many times throughout the ages. Government is a business like any other, only special in that you become an owner by virtue of citizenship.

Government is just people. It can't take, take, take without giving back any more than you or I can. For the US government to be able to afford to host Reddit long-term, it needs to start providing value that Reddit Inc. has been unable to find. What do you think they could do differently to start to deliver value?

> The reasons it does not are cultural, not economic.

I am not sure they are separable. Culture defines the economy. I agree that our broad culture sees little value in Reddit, giving no reason to bring it under the government watch – or to exist as a private business for that matter (hence the scrambling to try and change that). It is true that advertisers see some value, but not sufficiently so.

Reddit really backed themselves in a corner with respect to advertisers. The other social media giants realized that they had to make commercial users part of their core offering. I can promote my commerce all day long on those services for free and they're happy to point their users in my direction. Paid advertising just makes it better. Try doing the same on Reddit. You will be quickly banned for posting spam. That introduces a lot of friction in getting advertisers in the door, and also makes the paid ads that do make it onto the platform strangely bolted on the side, not a smooth part of the experience.

> no, but framing all aspect of life as a quantifiable trade, is

No. Such framing very much predates the invention of capitalism. Capitalism only speaks to a separation of ownership and labour. Nothing in this discussion relates to that.

[saiojd]

I understand better what you mean now. Clearly you've thought about this topic more than I have, so I don't think I can contribute much to the conversation unfortunately.

"It still has to deliver value in return for the value it takes.": To make sure I understand, how do you define 'value' exactly here?

"makes the paid ads that do make it onto the platform strangely bolted on the side, not a smooth part of the experience.": I guess for me that's the appeal in Reddit, in that it is not completely "consumerfied" yet. I feel like a Wikipedia-type management would be a much better fit for the end-user, but obviously it would be harder to collect donations to run Reddit than to run Wikipedia.

"I agree that our broad culture sees little value in Reddit": I agree, that's really the crux of it and it's too bad.

[randomdata]

> how do you define 'value' exactly here?

I suppose in the same way the dictionary does – the importance or worth of something.

When one has something they hold important, they won't want to give it up. If you expect others to continually give up something they deem important and not offer them anything in return (or only offer things they do not see as being as important), they are going to quickly grow disgruntled.

If the government took control of Reddit, it still needs people to operate. Not just developers, but people to build computers, people supplying power to run the servers, people providing connectivity, etc. along with other resources that people have. Generally, these people a high importance on their time and other resources. You need to offer something pretty compelling to get them to give it up – they will look for a fair trade.

That means other people need to give things up in return to make it a fair trade. Food is usually a pretty compelling offer. Most people will give up important things if you offer food[0] in exchange[1]. Is r/farming compelling enough to get farmers to give up their food for? Not likely.

Yes, a government can point a gun at their backs and tell them they must give up food to the workers at Reddit. And that might work for a while, but eventually they will become disgruntled as described before. "I'm slaving in the fields all day and all I get is a few minutes on r/farming before bed in return? That's not fair!" they will start to cry. This is when you'll start to see protests, conflict, and perhaps even a fall of government.

[0] Replace food/farmers with any other compelling good/service.

[1] In practice, you'll offer money. But remember money is just an IOU. Everyone will ultimately redeem a portion of the IOUs they collect for food.

> but obviously it would be harder to collect donations to run Reddit

Seems that way. Gold was effectively their attempt at that, but it doesn't appear to have amounted to much.

> I agree, that's really the crux of it and it's too bad.

Is it? Discussion forums are a commodity.

Reddit didn't do anything Usenet wasn't already doing 30 years earlier, other than providing a client with better UX. But arguably clients like Apollo provided even better UX than Reddit and, based on what came out of that drama, it appears Apollo was taking an even larger share of the net value than Reddit.