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Notes -
It takes a particular kind of owner of the space as well. The temptations of money beckon on all sides in this day and age.
/r/FemaleDatingStrategy became a popular subreddit around what amounted to a feminized version of PUA. The head mods chose to move off of Reddit to a new proprietary website where they focus more on their podcasts, merch, patreon content, etc. I stopped hearing about FDS about the point at which they moved sites, but for the mods it has gone from unpaid Janny work to profitable side hustle. The move undoubtedly throttled audience growth, but it turned the audience they had into paying customers.
The temptation to cash in, at the expense of the growth of the forum or of the original mission of the forum or of the original members of the forum, is great. You need an owner of the forum who doesn't want to cash in, who is content to stay small, who doesn't want to get invited to the good parties and have prestige over it.
This impacts political forums the most, but it hits everything from sports to fashion to philosophy. We're lucky here that the goal seems to be a permanent member's club, where we all hang out to chat, but even then we've seen former power users alter their posting (and their politics) to try to hustle a living on the internet of beefs.
Kulak and Trace are the only ones I’ve seen cash out so far. Are there more I’m missing?
Yassine?
We had a former lawyer who went on the podcast route as well, IIRC
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