Do you think Fluther would "sell-out"?

Anyone can sell out.

If they got offered millions for the site, I wouldn’t be one to judge them for “selling out”.

Get bought…sounds awkward.

Life goes on. Life is about changes. Nothing stays the same. Except a root-beer float. That’s always good.

Say they did sell out, and signed a non-compete agreement; it wouldn’t be hard for someone else to develop something fairly similar.

The buyer probably couldn’t keep the users, especially if they made a lot of changes, or added a lot more advertising, or brought in a whole lot more users at once.

Askville tried to go that route, and pretty much all the interesting people left. Also some not so interesting people. If you ask me, the value of this site is the interestingness of the people who use it. If that goes, then the people go, and then what do you have?

I think there’s a limit to the growth of these things. Get too big, and the sense of community disappears. Then the place is pretty much worthless.

Fluther already sold out. It is a Yahoo property now. The merge is in the works.

How is babby formed..

That link never ceases to make me laugh.

God, I hope not.
I would cry.

:’’’’’’’’’(

@johnpowell Thanks for the word. I’m outta here.

@johnpowell that is fucking hysterical.

The trick is maintaining the community as we grow, through technology and social/cultural engineering.

And of course, the number one thing we’re always looking out for is the quality of the community.

@andrew In rl, there are theoretical limits on the size of communities before they start developing serious fractures. I don’t know if those limits are different in vl, but I’m sure they are there, somewhere.

In rl, when you run up against that limit, you have to split the group into two. In vl, we have limitless real estate, so that is always an option. Food for thought?

…imgaine…Fluther on the moon

The value here is in the community of querents and respondents. If Yahoo or Google bought Fluther and did as good a job as the current crew do in maintaining the environment, I don’t think anyone would mind—or, really, care.

But if they bought Fluther and started tweaking it, I think people would notice and leave.

Do you think they’re buildng this traffic for nothing? It’s not a question of will, it’s a question of when. I just wish I owned a piece of this pie.