That doesn't really contribute to the discussion and it is just wrong. What makes a placea cesspool is not the position someone is taking, but how they are taking that position and there are a small minority of people from all sides that cause this problem.
It's more that I am not convinced at all that these large communities are a good thing and I am not surprised that there seems to be a natural feedback mechanism to limit their size given the extremely long time we have been social creatures. The market power issue isn't the only issue with them, it's just the one that annoys me the most as an economist.
> What makes a placea cesspool is not the position someone is taking, but how they are taking that position
Disagree. You can have a cesspool of civility (Stormfront users were (are? Is the site still up?) quite civil on their forums… as long as you didn’t admit to being a non-white immigrant for example).
You can also have something like TopMindsOfReddit, which is all sarcasm all the time, yet still empathetic and wholesome.
I have never been to stormfront so I will have to take your word for it but your own explanation of their behavior betrays your point. Cesspool of civility is contradiction in terms that just means they discuss stuff you (and I) strongly disagree with cordially and respectfully. How they treat people who admit to not being white is what makes it a cesspool and also if their discussions go into things nearly universally agreed to be illegal (i.e. killing people, property destruction, etc). The other example is one of the exceptions where people know they are agreeing to suspend some aspect of civility that isn't related to something illegal when they enter the premises. Another example of that would be karen's diner chain in Australia.
It's more that I am not convinced at all that these large communities are a good thing and I am not surprised that there seems to be a natural feedback mechanism to limit their size given the extremely long time we have been social creatures. The market power issue isn't the only issue with them, it's just the one that annoys me the most as an economist.