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this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2024
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Problem is the entire concept of a site like reddit being "for profit" in the first place.
I know we all wax nostalgic about the old non-centralized Internet with its various small websites and forums, but one thing I do genuinely miss from those days was that those places existed because the people running them wanted them to exist. They had ads or took donations to keep the lights on, but no one was looking to get rich. Passion, not profit.
The decentralized internet was run more by people, the centralized internet is run by board rooms.
That's why I like the idea of the fediverse. That is why this place feels familiar to those early days.
The "old internet" hasn't gone away. It's easier than ever for your average person to set up their own website. Look at all the shit you can do with WordPress, usually for free and usually with minimal technical knowledge or experience. Reddit/Facebook/Google/etc have done nothing at all to prevent people from doing that. The people still choose reddit/Facebook/google. I don't know we're supposed to change that without actually removing people's freedom of choice.
In my opinion/experience, it's for a few reasons. People are marketed these centralized platforms, typically they're very/fairly simple to use, and those platforms already have an established userbase. Combined with the other factors, the userbase will keep growing, which also incentivizes Even more users to adopt the platform.
For most people, there's no incentive to use some small random forum. And these small random forums aren't typically run for profit, meaning people aren't paying for ads for their niche forum or hobby website because it's just a hobby, not a business run for profit. Whereas people will see countless ads for Instagram or TikTok. Typically, people who don't block ads, and use these sorts of media didn't care enough to bother looking for alternative platforms, they couldn't even be bothered to set up an adblocker.