Comment Re:Reddit is shit. Where is the open alternative ? (Score 1) 98
In my mind, this type of thing should have become government funded (well, if there was a functional one) but changed to independent non-profit (BBC type of thing).
There are tons of examples of sites that were made by individuals, smaller companies, usually not large international mega-corps. Some were really only made useful by users. They end up becoming something basically a public utility (like electricity or telephone). I understand that many people would think calling them utilities is going overboard, but I don't think it is. At sometime, all utilities were luxuries and not considered necessary like they are today. To me, innovations that mostly benefit society should all become utilities just as plumbing, electricity, and telephone once did. Google revolutionized searching the web only to largely destroy the functionality/utility themselves. Reddit, allowed users to come together and fight injustices (usually companies that can screw customers because there isn't enough competition) or just find others that could give them free advice, open up an issue to a public forum full of knowledge. It was a platform that helped people, it wasn't perfect, but it was much more beneficial, than not, to society.
Inevitably, corporate interest destroy the societal benefits, sometimes all at once and sometimes it just slowly erodes them. Sometimes these 'utilities are bought out, and sometimes the corporations and/or industry interest use the courts to 'legislate' the benefits away using the judiciary (if that sounds wrong to you, you got it).. One example of the first IMDB, which utility was created by the public through ratings and reviews, then it was bought out and monetized. From what I remember it had very public APIs, I doubt they are as open as they were, if they still exist. An clear example of the second would be archive.org (including wayback machine). It was like a digital library that kept old publications, like a normal library keeps books and magazines, but unlike physical libraries it was gutted through the judiciary by lawsuits effectively creating legislation that allowed companies to destroy. An library equivalent would be companies going into the libraries and destroying old magazines and any corporate newsletters it wanted (more likely having the library itself do it under threat). Speaking of the wayback machine, the gutting of it has helped de-utilize Wikipedia because it's sources were linked to that because the original sources were 'disappeared' i.e. dead links and/or redirection. I don't know as much about why Wikipedia seems much less useful but I would guess, at least some 'judicial legislation' played a part. I used to be able to look up many domains. I once looked up a source someone used on a political issue and Wikipedia listed it as Russian owned or run. It was nice to be able to remove it as a legitimate unbiased source. I now find that questionable sites aren't listed, so I can't actually research there legitimacy or potential bias. I believe, many sites that should include include controversies just don't. I'm guessing that companies/sites can opt out or something to that effect of even being on Wikipedia. "Controversy" sections have largely disappeared. If there is a disagreement as to facts, I could follow the sources and use the knowledge to determine what the evidence actually favored and how biased the sources may or may not be. Now, I can't even check sources on most of the 'facts' on either side even if it is or was listed, regardless
