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Reddit's cofounder said that at first the company felt like 'a homework assignment that got out of hand' rather than a business (ca.movies.yahoo.com)

submitted 10 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Reddit's cofounder said that at first the company felt like 'a homework assignment that got out of hand' rather than a business::Reddit's cofounder Steve Huffman said in its early days he filled up most of the site with content using different accounts until it got more users.

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[–] 7heo@lemmy.ml 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I'll have to admit that I'm pretty unknowledgeable about the reddit history.

I was even unaware that spez left the company, all I know ~~was that it is based on an original idea from Aaron Swartz~~[^1], and that it's a damn shame he was "made an example of" by the American establishment, only for daring opposing to their "values" of "knowledge is only for the powerful".

If only they had left him alone, or had enforced a punishment on par with his "fault", he would still be alive, and we would have likely have seen a ton of extremely cool innovations from him.

[^1]: I checked the information after writing this, and it turns out, at least according to Wikipedia, to be false: reddit was in fact founded by spez and Alexis Ohanian, in 2005, and Swartz joined via a merger, in 2006. However, this goes against what Swartz himself said in an interview:
"I was with the Reddit team back when we were coming up with the idea, in the months before the first Y Combinator Summer Founders Program started. We eventually began working together full time around that November [2005]".

[–] Zak@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I was one of the first hundred or so people who didn't know the founders to make a reddit account. While I can't claim any deep insider knowledge, I was on the site and paying attention to developments. The idea that became reddit came from Paul Graham and was fundamentally a more social version of Delicious. What Arron Swartz was working on at the time was Infogami, which was pretty much a wiki, and became reddit's wiki when the companies merged.

His prosecution was certainly unjust and his suicide tragic, but I don't think either has anything to do with Reddit.

[–] 7heo@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Oh fuck I didn't even notice your nick... you're u/Zak on reddit??

Also, nah, his prosecution had nothing to do with reddit, this was my mandatory "fuck the abusive intellectual property and its consequence on the life of the common people" plug. Sorry 'bout that.

[–] Zak@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

you’re u/Zak on reddit??

I am.

[–] 7heo@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago

It's funny, because when I was searching for the information, I found your post... so I guess I could have saved myself a lot of trouble and just asked you here... 😅