SoftScotch

Is Reddit the new r word?

I wonder why Windows share dips while "unknown" surges. It seems to reverse afterwards.

I wonder how much money gamblers saved as a result of the downtime.

I got a laugh out of it!

That was also my first impression. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

An ashtray!

Sounds like mind mapping software. I use freeplane (formerly freemind) desktop app but would love to find a self-hosted collaborative web based alternative with a database backend.

I can imagine a high-karma account being monetized if there's an audience following a specific user - akin to Twitter followers. Is this even a thing on Reddit? I subscribe to communities, not users.

I just looked it up and there are indeed sites to buy and sell accounts, but they are fairly low-cost at around US$ 30. The only real value I can think of is for spam bots or organizations trying to manipulate public opinion using previously reputable accounts.

Social media has proven to be a powerful tool for behavior manipulation, for both commercial and political ends. (ads and mis/dis-information).

Wouldn't it be nice to sell to a good actor? Does it even matter anymore since Reddit is going down the toilet?

Genuine question. Who would buy a Reddit account? What's the value to the buyer? How would you find a buyer? Are there markets for social media accounts?

The article didn't mention if any ransom was paid to the attackers or whether other casinos saw an increase in their revenues.

Thank you for your responses. It really makes me think about the meaning of portability:

Are you moving your identity? (e.g. implementing something like instance-agnostic user PGP keys)

Your data? The posts and comments you've contributed, which would only make sense with the context of the entire thread.

How would the contents of entire communities be migrated? I presume that's where the valuable content is for potential buyers either to drive ad traffic or train models.

I hope I'm wrong, but... I think network effects could lead to a single instance becoming dominant and therefore vulnerable to such a takeover/sellout. I'm less sure about this, but perhaps non-technical users don't understand the concept of federated instances and flock to a single one. Perhaps there are other tangible benefits of everyone being on a single instance. Just because the protocol allows for decentralization, doesn't mean it will naturally happen. E.g. How many email users are on Microsoft exchange/outlook, Gmail, and Yahoo?

I love the concept of your own data being portable, but am afraid there might be other factors that somehow naturally lead to centralization. Please change my mind!