On Clickbate

submitted 5.8 years ago by PuttItOut

I came across this submission posted by my great pal Theo (actually I wouldn't trust him around sharp objects, but that's just me) and it was such a clickbate title! I was expecting him roast me for posting poetry to Voat.

I was ready to laugh.

I didn't laugh. It wasn't funny, it was concern fagging about my credibility, mental state, and casting doubt about Voat and who we partnered with. I hate clickbate.

If you filter down the list of demands you get to the important stuff. This is some of it. I've said this before, and will one last time.

Why would anyone invest in Voat?

They believe Free Speech is important
They see a lot of potential in Voat

They aren't selling ads, so obviously they are selling us out.

Voat data has never been shared with anyone, and will remain this way.

How is Voat ever going to make money?

We realized years ago that advertising was a dead end. At best it would possibly cover hosting costs. It is sad in a way, because we could get some advertising, but we can't expect Voat to change. If I said "Hey guys, we can get some advertisement money if we clean up the defaults a bit," how would that end? Basically we can't advertise here because of the content. It's that bad.

We have a new feature set coming out soon that will allow Voat to generate revenue in fun and different ways. We are going to move in this direction and build out revenue capability on top of it.
Additionally, while developing some prototype features, we realized that we could use the software for a different purpose, potentially opening up an entirely new market separate from Voat (no Voat wouldn't change). So we are working to this end too.

Who is The Angel?

I'm not saying, because it's unimportant. I have controlling interest in Voat. The Angel is a silent partner and does not get involved with the running of Voat. Maybe they should because it takes a ton of time and they might be better than me. ;)

Short of it is:

If you don't trust me you should leave Voat, it's what I did with Reddit. That's honestly my best advice.

What I didn't do when I left Reddit was make a bunch of destructive posts about how much I didn't trust them. You know, to go along with that builder/destroyer theme we have going.

Another sticky? Who is this power mod!?

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srayzie 5.8 years ago

Short of it is:

If you don't trust me you should leave Voat, it's what I did with Reddit. That's honestly my best advice.

THIS 👆🏻

@Sandhog said the following in a comment. I think it applies to this situation as well.

Some people seem to think that burning subs to the ground and driving users off of Voat under the banner of 'it's just jokes bro' and 'it's my free speech' is somehow justifiable. Attacking existing subs with the sole intent to destroy them is censorship and it can only beget more censorship in response to it. That is all it can ever accomplish. The motives don't even really matter because the end result will always be the same. It also opens the door wide open for future astroturfing campaigns once that behavior becomes acceptable. People should really think about what kind of precedent shit like this sets. It's one thing to do a bit of trolling but what has been happening here has gone well beyond that.

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