Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Some services have huge network effects that make the product better through higher distribution.

Imagine if there were no "digg this" buttons. There would be worse content and fewer Digg users - making all of Digg worse.



Fewer Digg users might result in a higher quality digg, because the community is more tightly-knit.


Digg as a community isn't worth much. Digg is valuable because of the huge set of eyeballs for Ads on Digg itself and Dugg stories. It has nothing to do with community.


Digg has different value to different demographics. For the advertisers and business persons, it is valuable in proportion to the size of the community. To those within the community, it is valuable inversly proportional to the size of the community - unless you're in part of the community that likes videos of small children hitting grown men in the genitals with baseball bats.

The problem isn't that the community is valueless - it's that it is very difficult to monetize other people's contributions.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: