zlacker

I agree on land being the “commons”.

If a server with nothing on it is just taking up space, then the users will have no problem spinning their own up and replacing Reddit or whatever.

>>lotsof+(OP)
That's the point, the server is commodity, hacker news or voat or dozens of others can provide the same platform.

The community and the eyeballs are what is valuable, and Reddit holds them captive not due to any incremental value they provide, but due to network effects. Lots of people or companies would immediately replace Reddit if the quality of the server or UX or UI was what mattered -- but cannot because the audience is captive.

Killing the apps represents a unique "digg moment" of pissing off users enough to bother migrating.