Reddit CEO Says Paywalls are Coming Soon

[freebrickproductions]

So how did it stay online for the first 18 years of its existence? 

Mostly due to venture capital covering its losses. It just went public last year.

Honestly, the idea that a website can launch with no plan for profitability, just an assumption that they'll develop one, and then a kid who was born when the site was launched would be old enough to vote by the time it does turn a profit, and not only did nobody see an issue with that, but it was so normalized that a huge swath of the internet ran on the same model, and that this all happened after the .com bubble (which caused a minor recession when it burst) was caused by the exact same thing, is wholly ridiculous and doesn't say anything good about humanity.  But I guess I should probably just forget that and drink some Brawndo (the Thirst Mutilator) for my sanity.  It's got what plants crave.

In some ways, tech as a whole has basically been hopping from bubble to bubble in hopes of staying alive.

[kkt]

So how did it stay online for the first 18 years of its existence? 

Mostly due to venture capital covering its losses. It just went public last year.

Honestly, the idea that a website can launch with no plan for profitability, just an assumption that they'll develop one, and then a kid who was born when the site was launched would be old enough to vote by the time it does turn a profit, and not only did nobody see an issue with that, but it was so normalized that a huge swath of the internet ran on the same model, and that this all happened after the .com bubble (which caused a minor recession when it burst) was caused by the exact same thing, is wholly ridiculous and doesn't say anything good about humanity.  But I guess I should probably just forget that and drink some Brawndo (the Thirst Mutilator) for my sanity.  It's got what plants crave.

In some ways, tech as a whole has basically been hopping from bubble to bubble in hopes of staying alive.

Now I've got the BeeGee's Stayin' Alive running through my head... thanks a lot, I think

[kphoger]

Honestly, the idea that a website can launch with no plan for profitability, just an assumption that they'll develop one, and then a kid who was born when the site was launched would be old enough to vote by the time it does turn a profit, and not only did nobody see an issue with that, but it was so normalized that a huge swath of the internet ran on the same model, and that this all happened after the .com bubble (which caused a minor recession when it burst) was caused by the exact same thing, is wholly ridiculous and doesn't say anything good about humanity.  But I guess I should probably just forget that and drink some Brawndo (the Thirst Mutilator) for my sanity.  It's got what plants crave.

Boom Technology has entered the chat.

[kalvado]

Honestly, the idea that a website can launch with no plan for profitability, just an assumption that they'll develop one, and then a kid who was born when the site was launched would be old enough to vote by the time it does turn a profit, and not only did nobody see an issue with that, but it was so normalized that a huge swath of the internet ran on the same model, and that this all happened after the .com bubble (which caused a minor recession when it burst) was caused by the exact same thing, is wholly ridiculous and doesn't say anything good about humanity.  But I guess I should probably just forget that and drink some Brawndo (the Thirst Mutilator) for my sanity.  It's got what plants crave.

Boom Technology has entered the chat.

No way. I heard even Wright brothers planned for first class seats.

[jeffandnicole]

Honestly, the idea that a website can launch with no plan for profitability, just an assumption that they'll develop one, and then a kid who was born when the site was launched would be old enough to vote by the time it does turn a profit, and not only did nobody see an issue with that, but it was so normalized that a huge swath of the internet ran on the same model, and that this all happened after the .com bubble (which caused a minor recession when it burst) was caused by the exact same thing, is wholly ridiculous and doesn't say anything good about humanity.  But I guess I should probably just forget that and drink some Brawndo (the Thirst Mutilator) for my sanity.  It's got what plants crave.

Boom Technology has entered the chat.

No way. I heard even Wright brothers planned for first class seats.

Directly, or by word of mouth?

[kalvado]

Honestly, the idea that a website can launch with no plan for profitability, just an assumption that they'll develop one, and then a kid who was born when the site was launched would be old enough to vote by the time it does turn a profit, and not only did nobody see an issue with that, but it was so normalized that a huge swath of the internet ran on the same model, and that this all happened after the .com bubble (which caused a minor recession when it burst) was caused by the exact same thing, is wholly ridiculous and doesn't say anything good about humanity.  But I guess I should probably just forget that and drink some Brawndo (the Thirst Mutilator) for my sanity.  It's got what plants crave.

Boom Technology has entered the chat.

No way. I heard even Wright brothers planned for first class seats.

Directly, or by word of mouth?

I am not sure by now, but Orville wasn't very talkative. 

[ClassicHasClass]

HB's Usenet renaissance is the best idea he's ever had.

The problem with usenet is that it just got too spammy.

That and Carl Rogers was very annoying.

With a good newsreader, blocking a few annoying users was easy.  There were also moderated newsgroups, in which a group of moderators could mark a post as blessed, and only blessed posts would come through.  I don't remember exactly how it worked, but it was subtle enough to stop spammers from duplicating the blessing on their spam.

Moderated newsgroups E-mailed the posts to the moderator, who would manually post them through their local news server with an approval header. Moderating a binaries newsgroup or a popular one with a lot of bots or cretins could be a lot of fun if your mail host was running low on space. Don't ask me how I know this ...

On the other hand, Usenet doesn't generally come with modern Internet packages, so I would imagine many, if not most, people on Usenet now actually are paying for it. There are some free servers but they tend to have poor reputations or strict limits. That's not exactly the Eternal September of yore.

[TheGrassGuy]

Considering how long it's been since we've had the actual AARoads skin here, I think it might be time to admit that even we're not immune to enshittification.

[Scott5114]

Considering how long it's been since we've had the actual AARoads skin here, I think it might be time to admit that even we're not immune to enshittification.

This is an incredibly rude thing to say when you know the person that is responsible for that is reading it.

Nobody's profiting off of the forum theme being different. I have been pretty transparent as to why it hasn't come back: it's a big time sink. I'm not getting paid to do it, so things that I do get paid for have taken priority. You know, so I don't lose my house. Also, I moved halfway across the continent in that time period. And since it's a low priority, I forget it's even on my to do list sometimes.

Being an asshole about it certainly doesn't motivate me to prioritize it any higher.

[SEWIGuy]

Considering how long it's been since we've had the actual AARoads skin here, I think it might be time to admit that even we're not immune to enshittification.

You can delete this you know.

[kalvado]

Considering how long it's been since we've had the actual AARoads skin here, I think it might be time to admit that even we're not immune to enshittification.

You can delete this you know.

Alternatively, you may ask for theme files from the previous and current versions and offer some help

[kkt]

HB's Usenet renaissance is the best idea he's ever had.

The problem with usenet is that it just got too spammy.

That and Carl Rogers was very annoying.

With a good newsreader, blocking a few annoying users was easy.  There were also moderated newsgroups, in which a group of moderators could mark a post as blessed, and only blessed posts would come through.  I don't remember exactly how it worked, but it was subtle enough to stop spammers from duplicating the blessing on their spam.

Moderated newsgroups E-mailed the posts to the moderator, who would manually post them through their local news server with an approval header. Moderating a binaries newsgroup or a popular one with a lot of bots or cretins could be a lot of fun if your mail host was running low on space. Don't ask me how I know this ...

On the other hand, Usenet doesn't generally come with modern Internet packages, so I would imagine many, if not most, people on Usenet now actually are paying for it. There are some free servers but they tend to have poor reputations or strict limits. That's not exactly the Eternal September of yore.

There ARE still some servers operating?  Is there any content left that is NOT spam?  My ISP had a Usenet server and then stopped... I switched over to one of the still operating free servers for about a year, and then THEY stopped.  That was the point when I gave up.

[ClassicHasClass]

HB's Usenet renaissance is the best idea he's ever had.

The problem with usenet is that it just got too spammy.

That and Carl Rogers was very annoying.

With a good newsreader, blocking a few annoying users was easy.  There were also moderated newsgroups, in which a group of moderators could mark a post as blessed, and only blessed posts would come through.  I don't remember exactly how it worked, but it was subtle enough to stop spammers from duplicating the blessing on their spam.

Moderated newsgroups E-mailed the posts to the moderator, who would manually post them through their local news server with an approval header. Moderating a binaries newsgroup or a popular one with a lot of bots or cretins could be a lot of fun if your mail host was running low on space. Don't ask me how I know this ...

On the other hand, Usenet doesn't generally come with modern Internet packages, so I would imagine many, if not most, people on Usenet now actually are paying for it. There are some free servers but they tend to have poor reputations or strict limits. That's not exactly the Eternal September of yore.

There ARE still some servers operating?  Is there any content left that is NOT spam?  My ISP had a Usenet server and then stopped... I switched over to one of the still operating free servers for about a year, and then THEY stopped.  That was the point when I gave up.

Yeah, there are still some specialist paid servers like Supernews/Giganews around. In fact, your ISP may have outsourced their news spool to them; many do. That's what I used to use, but it was increasingly expensive for somewhere I was spending little time on anymore.

[hbelkins]

What's the best paid Usenet server functioning now? My old server (Newsguy) went bankrupt a few years ago and shut down abruptly. And are there any decent user-side clients available anymore? Thoth for Mac isn't in development anymore.