[kami8845]

>Reddit is replaceable. Shut down today, a dozen clones would rise up tomorrow.

You don't understand the value of reddit. As I've written in other posts in this thread. It's the community and that's impossible to replace (as evidenced by the hundreds of other forums that have shit communities) Reddit is far and above many, many online communities in terms of breadth & depth.

[markdown]

> You don't understand the value of reddit.

You'd take that back if you saw my karma level. I use selfcontrol.app to keep Reddit at bay.

> It's the community and that's impossible to replace

I've been a member of lots of better communities... there's only so far you can get 'attached' to people who are anonymous.

Your entire argument is that a venue to discuss things is more important than the source of the discussion topic. I just can't agree with that. Throw out the water cooler and I'll take my discussion to the coffee machine. But throw out the discussion topic (Exposé on corruption at the FDA in the NYT), and water cooler or coffee machine, what will we talk about... Honey Boo Boo?

[natrius]

When I actively read them, I valued the communities of Slashdot, Fark and Metafilter just as much as I value the Reddit community. Reddit is less unique in that regard than you might think. It is absolutely more replaceable than the New York Times. It's mindboggling that I even had to type that last sentence.

[rm999]

Your evidence that reddit is replaceable is you've used similar sites (most of which are basically dead in the water at this point). But in the same paragraph you exempt the new york times from that same reasoning. There are several large high-quality newspapers out there competing with the new york times (washington post, wall street journal, la times, chicago tribune, etc). I love the times, but "it may be less unique than you might think."

If anything, the internet has made the media extremely fungibile. Social networks are the opposite - as they grow the ability to switch between them becomes more difficult.

[natrius]

"Your evidence that reddit is replaceable is you've used similar sites (most of which are basically dead in the water at this point)."

That's the point. Internet communities come and go all the time. None of them have proven to be hard to replace. Quality news organizations don't pop up every few years.

The New York Times has competitors, but not equals. All of the papers you mentioned (except for the WSJ, which is indispensable in its niche) have a small fraction of the subscribers the New York Times does, which seems like a pretty good metric for unique value.

[kami8845]

I guess different strokes for different folks. For me and the vast array of different specialist subreddits I use day-to-day, not only to consume but also to help others and participate in discussion I find the situation as I find it currently unique on the internet and incredibly hard to replicate. Added to that the karma system which consistently promotes good content (it's amazing what people will do to get karma, it works amazingly as an incentive).

To me the NYTimes is "articles with pictures". I can get that on a dozen more sites on the internet. And without a paywall.

[DanBC]

People would have said the same about MySpace or text-only Usenet at one time.

Imgur has some voting stuff now, and it'll be interesting to see if that helps it take off or not.

And there are other sites trying to develop good communications. Hubski, for example.

[kami8845]

Hubski looks interesting. I'll keep an eye on them, though do they do still look very tiny.

I don't think Imgur will ever take off. There is no fostering of individual subcultures like there was with subreddits. Basically their entire content revolves around funny images. Their comments never become thoughtful like reddit's.

MySpace started in 2003 and lost the battle to FB in 2008. Reddit was founded and has been growing steady and strong for 7 years, killing competitor Digg along the ride (Digg mainly caused it's own decline but I find the easy availability of a close competitor made it much easier).

I stand by the above statement. Reddit's community grew slowly and organically while the admins went through great pains to remain as "hands-off" as they could. They have major respect for their community and understand that that's the make-or-break aspect of the site.

[eurleif]

>I don't think Imgur will ever take off.

Huh? Imgur already has more traffic than reddit. http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?w=400&h=220&o=f&c...;