[phildeschaine]

The difference with reddit (and the real genius of the initial vision) is that any user can create a subreddit. Compare this to craigslist where the admins defined the 50 or so static categories at the outset. Reddit, on the other hand, has interesting (and not so interesting) subreddits pop up every day.

Some of my favorites of the last year or two are http://reddit.com/r/ExplainLikeIAmA, http://reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting, http://reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful, http://reddit.com/r/futurology, http://reddit.com/r/outside, and http://reddit.com/r/hwstartups. To name just a few. There is basically no way the reddit founders could have envisioned any of those categories, but thankfully, they had the foresight to create a generic, make-your-own-category platform.

The community of reddit certainly has shifted quite a bit, but this ability to evolve organically will keep it from unraveling in the same way as Craigslist has. I think it's a bad comparison anyway.