
4chan is running out of money - r721
http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/3/13155072/4chan-struggling-with-hosting-costs
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castratikron
4chan is a phenomenon. It's the complete antithesis to centralized, regulated
public forums like Facebook that demand all information about your identity
and keep permanent records on everything you've ever said and done. It's the
last vestige of pre-"Web 2.0". While there have been countless horrors that
have arisen from 4chan, part of me would be sad to see it go. Most of the
Internet culture of the last decade has been defined by 4chan.

Would a switch to a distributed model of hosting have any chance of working?
Chan@Home? I'd imagine the latency would be a lot higher, and it'd probably be
ever harder to moderate than it is now.

~~~
dalke
4chan depend on a central server, which is why lack of funding can cause a
failure.

 _Usenet /netnews_ is the complete antithesis to centralized forums.

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stirner
Nishimura is the founder of 2channel, the Japanese website than 4chan began as
a direct clone of. He is known for doing sketchy stuff in order to make a
buck, and when he bought 4chan, many users speculated that he would mess with
the site in some way to make a profit. I don't think anyone expected him to
flat-out suggest malicious ads to his users, though.

~~~
ezoe
>Nishimura is the founder of 2channel, the Japanese website than 4chan began
as a direct clone of.

No.

Amezou(person) started the Amezou. Nisimura Hiroyuki cloned Amezou and started
2ch.

Then, nameless person cloned 2ch and started Futaba channel.

4chan cloned from Futaba channel.

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thanatropism
The king is gone, but not forgotten this is the story of Johnny Rotten it's
better to burn out than to fade away...

------
r721
Another discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12635999](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12635999)

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MollyR
I thought there were a bunch of "chans". Won't the others just replace 4chan
in user share?

~~~
resfirestar
>Won't the others just replace 4chan in user share?

Due to its position as the nexus of "internet culture" for at least a few
years in the late 2000s, 4chan is very special. It is one of two major general
purpose chans (the other being 8chan). All other chans, including 8chan,
define themselves along the lines of "4chan but...", "4chan without...",
"4chan with...", or similar. And if they don't now, they started that way.

8chan is the only one that has gained and kept a large enough dedicated
userbase for significant content and memes with broad appeal to originate from
there. This is a unique consequence of its origin.

Most living alt chans are specialized supplements to 4chan (the "4chan
with..." category), and make no apologies for it. Many 4chan regulars frequent
one or two: I enjoy cyberpunk literature and content, there's a chan for that.
Some people hate the lack of a board dedicated to drugs, there's a chan for
that. But most still go to 4chan, at least nostalgically, often in search of a
long-gone "board culture" that we loved years ago. And 4chan remains the
single point where chan culture blends, posting style is standardized, and
memes catch fire.

8chan was not born as a supplement to 4chan. Like many failed chans, it was
created when 4chan moderators did, or were perceived to be doing or planning,
something to anger users. But 8chan and the controversy that popularized it
were different. Usually moot's missteps become jokes. GamerGate convinced a
significant number of people (more precisely, a subset of white male
teenagers, henceforth "gators") that there really was a vast conspiracy to
indoctrinate the youth using video games. 4chan's moderators were judged to be
part of the media element of that conspiracy. From that point, 4chan
permanently lost the trust and loyalty of gators. They went to 8chan, closely
followed by far-right goons who take /pol/ very seriously and would become
inconsolable when moot did routine pranks like background music or wacky CSS.
Somehow this was a diverse enough group (in interests, not background) to put
8chan in direct competition with 4chan.

If 4chan folds, I predict 8chan alone will get the bulk of the users unless a
direct spiritual successor emerges. Board closures probably wouldn't matter to
users, neither would ads or upload limits. It's more a question of whether
those measures would actually solve the money problem.

