
4chan is running out of money–and Martin Shkreli wants to help out - pavornyoh
http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/10/4chan-cashflow-problem-martin-shkreli-wants-to-join-board/
======
gnarbarian
I love 4chan. It's a bastion of raw unmitigated free speech and anonymity.
Because of this, people naturally use it to say things they can't normally in
public or with a account that might be linked back to their real name.

There are no points, only replies. Unpopular opinions aren't hidden. Popular
opinions are boring and those threads disappear from a lack of replies. The
most provocative threads are the ones which thrive. This is the exact opposite
of voting sites like hacker news and Reddit.

We need a place like this to exist where people aren't saddled with long term
consequences for making their real opinions known. Users on 4chan are rewarded
with replies for thinking outside of the box and breaking rank.

Losing it would be a terrible loss for discourse. Sure there are lots of
trolls there. Yes there is lots of racism and offensive content and gore. If
you dont like that sort of thing you are free to not go there. But there must
be a place for people to hash these ideas out and get unpopular opinions off
their chest.

Convenient anonymity on the Internet is dying, and if it does ultimately go so
will freedom of speech. Because nobody will be free to speak their mind when a
deviant or unpopular opinion may incur the wrath of a targeted campaign
against them to destroy their professional and private life at any point in
the future. Especially when those opinions which were once common are now out
of style. (See Brandon Eich or Palmer Luckey)

The lack of rules and consequences is precisely the reason 4chan has always
been a creative powerhouse where trends and content are born at a rate that is
unmatched elsewhere. Some of the funniest things I've read have come from the
unrestrained banter between people from different countries on the /int/
(international) board.

Despite all this, it's always been difficult to keep that place above water.
They need a sort of Reddit gold type epiphany.

~~~
Raphmedia
> They need a sort of Reddit gold type epiphany.

Can't you already pay for a 4chan premium account that allows you to... I
can't remember, post more, ignore the captcha, etc?

~~~
gnarbarian
You can't buy it for someone else though. That was the key to the Reddit gold
success.

------
unethical_ban
I recall several netizens posting concern about the buyer of 4chan, how he ran
some other Japanese sites into the ground. Now on /. there is someone claiming
the new owner turned ads down and tried to promote 4chan passes, which now
don't work.

Another person points out that even if you hate 4chan (or especially if you
do), it'd be better left intact to contain the culture that foments there.
Otherwise we might see /r/The_Donald style posts all over the internet.

In any case, when you avoid the dregs of the site, the other boards can have
unique and even informative discussion.

~~~
bbctol
I think it's more likely that without 4chan, the general trolling and
immaturity may leak onto the rest of the internet, and the really intense
racism/misogyny/conspiratorial weirdness will go further underground and
anonymous. Whether this would be a good thing is debatable; I liked that 4chan
was open enough anyone could check on it and see which way the undercurrents
of the internet were heading, but it probably was a bad thing that lots of
generally bored slightly strange teens got linked to that level of racism.

~~~
M_Grey
4Chan isn't a prison, it's an incubator. See: Pepe.

~~~
lovich
Pepe is used for everything. You can take any symbol and make it horrible if
you start adding nazi paraphernalia to it. 4Chan happens to add that sort of
stuff to everything

~~~
KON_Air
It even it has its own bronze age style end of days cult which promotes Trump
for a more through destruction of the world. Got to admire how they managed to
sell their stuff to early Trump shills and play internet frog illuminati.

------
unfunco
4chan is viable as an anonymous and ephemeral p2p implementation, 4chan has
always suffered from the cost of running the service, which is kept to a
minimum (relative to say, reddit) due to the lack of persistence. It can
thrive with a peer-to-peer infrastructure since the need for advertising to
sustain running costs would disappear, add encryption, restrict content to
images and text to avoid the RIAA or MPAA getting close and it could be a
veritable outlet for unabridged and uncensored views.

~~~
mustacheemperor
Hasn't this been tried before? If I'm not mistaken Aether is a similar concept
but I'm not sure how much traction it's gotten.
[http://getaether.net/](http://getaether.net/)

------
denom
I guess they deserve each other?

~~~
Esperaux
Maybe /pol deserves him but quite a few boards on 4chan where actually pretty
accepting and friendly, particularly /I.

~~~
rarec
/tg/ has its moments as well.

~~~
gnarbarian
I like /k/ and /int/

/Pol/ used to be more ideologically diverse where you would always see
communists libertarians and national socialists duking it out in hilarious
exchanges (both sincerely and ironically). But a massive banwave in November
2014 drove a ton of users to 8chan where anyone can create their own board. So
now /pol/ is the alt right equivalent of the monoculture seen at
Reddit.com/r/politics and 8chan has 10 echo chambers for each political
ideology. Echo chambers cement and worsen extremism and the biggest casualty
has been the exchange of banter across ideological boundaries.

~~~
RunningDroid
I've always wondered how to fix this when/if 8Chan's users move towards a
peer-to-peer system.

Maybe some kind of "I use this board so I agree to share the content" style
feature?

~~~
gnarbarian
I think it would work like a tagging feature. So if you make a post, you can
put a tags on it like #weapons and #politics anyone subscribed to those tags
could see your post and reply to it.

Not sure how to prevent balkanization though, undoubtedly people will post to
#politics-antidisestablishmentarianism and whatnot.

