The funny thing is that Reddit completely inadvertently killed one of the possible heirs in Voat. That site had potential to steal the traditional Reddit audience due to Reddit's mismanagement. However Reddit's crackdown on hate on the site caused a big exodus of problem users to Voat. The end result is that Voat is now a vile alt-right wasteland that presents no threat of stealing Reddit's mainstream audience.
That's like how some online games don't entirely ban cheat users but only match them with other cheaters, giving them a taste of their own medicine. There's a tipping point in the evolution of communities. When there are too many acting in an anti-social manner such that fun or business is impaired, people quit. If not addressed the community permanently declines.
There's a term of art in philosophy called universalizability (Kant). Basically, what would happen if everyone followed a principle or strategy. Locke spoke of the social contract - civilization is not compatible with unlimited individual freedom.
Reddit already has an interesting user sorting and self-selection process: sub-reddits. People can more easily congregate around common interests. They don't even have to buy a domain, learn HTML, or pay hosting bills. Which would seem to reduce flame wars. But this can result in groupthink and safe spaces for extreme views.
Just for those interested in philosophy but lacking knowledge of the subject, this is technically correct but not the complete picture. The term "universalizability" is informal and not precise in describing Kant's morality; it falls under his categorical imperative.[0] I suggest the entire linked SEP article for a more thorough discussion of the topic.
Steam games using VAC do not fully ban cheaters. They can still play on non-VAC servers. Of course, those tend to be scarce because no one wants to uncheck that feature when creating a server.
Oh wow. Last time I looked at voat was when gamergate was in full swing and voat had just started up. Most of the content was fairly similar to reddit, maybe with a slight alt-right bent.
Looking at the front page now, it's just turned into 4chan.
Agreed. When Reddit first started treating their mods with contempt, I swore off the place. I spent a fair while on Voat at that point and it was crude at times but there was still a lot of good content. I gave up on it after a while because toxic Reddit refugees turned it into such a cesspool.
Why can't another site pop up? There was one last year with a 4(?) letter name I forget (Lyme or something?) but it failed and shut down because it's impossible to pay the server bills with only nontoxic content, apparently.
I think the core issue is that no site can just "fill the void" suddenly, or else it will immediately become a toxic cesspool as trolls take over immediately and scare off all potential users. These sites have to grow slowly and naturally, like Reddit did, or like Digg and Facebook did. The trickle of users needs to start slow and grow through slow word of mouth, not hype.
Reddit itself did grow massively with the Digg exodus, but that was after it had already grown into its own, it had a community behind it to begin with. There was no content void for trolls to fill up with crap. It only worked because Reddit had grown up naturally already.
If a site is hyped as "reddit competitor", it will fail, just like sites hyped as a "facebook competitor" or "twitter competitor". Hype is a horrible thing for any site that depends on user interaction and discussion.
