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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   832 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 12, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I think there's a free niche, in our AI world. Strike it while it's hot deal, IMO. There's only one way humans online can keep talking to each other without the doubt that it's really another person you are talking to and not AI: paying for posting. And also having anti-AI policy. I don't think it's going to be easy to create something like this, we would need a Bluesky style mass-exodus to that platform and we are all so used to posting for free that the idea will be met with natural revulsion, but IMO it's the only way to continue talking to real people.

Or maybe such a platform already exists: Something Awful still validates people like that. I'd love it to be not ideologically captured like SA. Maybe framing it as a monthly subscription would be acceptable.

I think the dead internet is going to become true very soon, it already is to an extent. It must get much worse before people will really resort to paid posting.

Nobody wants to pay though.

Try running a paid subscription internet service. I'm actually selling something that costs money, so there's more of a value proposition than 'internet forum'. It's bleak. Over 100 free trial users, 4 subscribers, 3 of them unsubscribed. Of course I am not a very good businessman or marketer or developer tbh... but I think people underestimate the difficulty of getting people to subscribe!

Maybe we won't want to talk to each other online anymore in the future, but I think the problem will become a real pain point very soon. If I'm forced to make a bet: will we stop talking to each other online or will people pay for the service somehow, I'm betting on the former.

will we stop talking to each other online or will people pay for the service

If we end up with the former, I'll observe that "RETVRN TO 1993" doesn't sound the worst from the perspective of political norms. That does assume the alternative is "going outside and touching grass".

It would be funny is the main political divide in the future is “grass touchers vs slop eaters”?

The "grass fed" versus "feedlot" jokes practically write themselves.

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