[pla3rhat3r]

This reply makes me think of Craigslist and how it was really meant to be a community based platform for people to do or sell whatever they wanted. Add that they have/had a pretty active forum which was also a quasi-democracy in which the community decided what was good or bad.

I think this is what was intended for Product Hunt, but somewhere along the line something happened and this became a bit skewed.

I've never met Ryan, but I know many that have. It sounds like this was not a product meant to build on the "boys club" but to let people know about cool shit people were building. Eventually it became THE place to find new products and services to a point where, if you were launching a product, posting and having it upvoted on Product Hunt was/is a must.

From my perspective, that's not being a horrible person. That's creating something that people trust. Sounds like innovation to me.