[GenerWork]

>I'd merely spin up a couple of ISC InterNetNews NNTP servers and slap a web application in front of those.

If this was the only thing differentiating Reddit from anything other text reliant information service, why hasn't anybody come along and disrupted Reddit by doing something similar to this?

[seoulmetro]

Because that's not why people use products. They use them because others use them or the reputation suggests others use them.