[_mu]

> I think this is just a natural consequence of structuring everything around engagement.

Agree - for me this leads to the conclusion that some services should not be run for-profit, or at least they should be run for public benefit. Similar to how governments in some countries own part of the railway.

[rusk]

I’m not against for profit so much as the monetisation of engagement. The web has always had a revenue problem. For a time this was solved by “advertising” and that was massively successful and what we see here is the result of that. There has historically been a reluctance to ask people for money - handling money brings a whole host of other unglamorous problems.

As we saw with Steam the last few weeks.

[Kye]

The people who have always had trouble finding platforms and payment processors also always had trouble finding advertisers. Random demonetization on YouTube is a huge problem, for example.

[carlosjobim]

HN threads usually have a comment demanding socialization and government control of whatever issue is discussed. Usually first or second comment. This time it took until the third comment for somebody to make the demand.

If you want government organized discussion, look no further than listening to the sessions of parliament.

[socalgal2]

Doesn't help - even those are heavily biased

[a123b456c]

User ownership could help, if users know what they want