zlacker

>>jjcm+(OP)
Congrats on the hard work, and the idea is fine, but the problem is that tech like this is a cheap commodity in a massively oversaturated space, and without a hook that makes the platform exceptional (innovative/clever/beautiful design, unique aggregation features, inherently interesting content, reimagined user/content/moderation dynamics etc etc), this kind of thing is dead in the water because it lacks a network effect. Add in the upfront subscription model and failure to launch is basically assured.

When I visit the root domain I shouldn't be greeted with a marketing splash page, you need interesting content in the user's face right away, entice their curiosity and drive the user to explore the site... even as a fellow developer, my first instinct is to abandon the page as soon as I'm greeted with the cliche startup marketing page. Consider the user experience when I visit reddit.com or news.ycombinator.com or any other link aggregation competitor. What you have now is a tech demo, not a platform. Sorry if that's a little harsh, but I mean well! Good luck!

>>root_a+Ih
100% agree with everything said here.

My original plan was to pay for ~100 users accounts and seed the site with content for a proper launch. Given what's happening today though, it felt at least pertinent to show off the current state and get some feedback.

The balance between splash page on landing / landing on content is a hard one, but I think you're right. I am worried though that without conveying the initial business model, it'll be harder for users to understand that this isn't a direct reddit clone.

>>jjcm+qm
An idea I mull over occasionally: what if you could spend your karma points to boost any given post? This would ultimately be another form of paid advertising, except that the currency used would be earned by contributing to the community. Then, allow people to sell their karma points for fiat currency. Companies would buy karma points directly from users in order to promote their self-promotional posts, but those posts would be subject to the same rules and moderation as any other post. That way you're actually paying your best users rather than charging them.

>>kokane+dS
This has been tried in the cryptocurrency space, people start faking accounts to upvote their content and make money.

So basically what already happens with reddit/twitter/etc but amplified because you give them a direct financial incentive to upvote low effort crap.

>>ric2b+jx1
That doesn't really work when they have to pay for each account they use to upvote though.

Even if they boost their own post a bit for it to get the attention of others, they're still paying $2 per upvote for that. And if their post is no good, people might even just cancel those out with downvotes.

>>pcthro+dS1
It is essentially a perfect recipe for money laundering.

>>janals+v12
This would be the most inefficient way to launder money ever. You'd get at most 50% of the money you took in (realistically, more like 30-40% with taxes if you were transferring significant volume), and you'd have to have an active account that posted a lot of legitimate-sounding comments, and at least 10K sockpuppet accounts which you'd then need to script a way to upvote all the posts by the account you're intending to launder it through.

That's assuming the site lets 10K+ users sign up and pay with crypto, or you have the time to track down and signup for 10K prepaid burner cards. Then, after allo that, you'd have to hope that the site never detects the vote manipulation, since you'd have an account that's getting tons of upvotes from a specific set of users.

Really.. I think this is the worst idea for laundering money I've ever heard of. You'd be better off walking into a casino and putting it all on blackjack until you win a big hand, then reporting the winnings.

>>pcthro+ea2
Agreed. It's way more efficient to sell $10,000 cabinets named "Julia" on Wayfair.