4chan Is Running Out of Money and Martin Shkreli Wants To Buy It (theverge.com) 254
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The infamous message board 4chan is struggling to stay afloat and will have to make changes to reduce costs, the site's owner wrote in a post on Sunday. "4chan can't afford infrastructure costs, network fee, servers cost, CDN and etc, now," writes Hiroyuki Nisimura, who bought the site from its founder last year. Nisimura says ads haven't been effective enough to support the site, nor have subscriptions offering additional features. "We had tried to keep 4chan as is. But I failed," Nisimura writes. "I am sincerely sorry." There are three options for 4chan to survive going forward, as far as Nisimura sees it: sell more subscriptions, include "much more" -- and potentially even malicious -- ads, or cut traffic to the site in half. That might be done by closing message boards, slowing down the site, or reducing the size of images that can be posted. Nisimura makes it sound bad (his post is titled "Winter is coming"), but he also proposes changes to save the site. Meanwhile, another infamous name -- Martin Shkreli -- says he's interested in buying 4chan; he's in touch with Nisimura, so maybe we'll see how that remarkably bad combination turns out. Martin Shkreli tweeted: "I'm open to joining the Board of Directors of 4Chan. @4chan." Not too long after, Hiroyuki Nisimura replied: "I have replied your DM. Thank you for supporting 4chan @MartinShkreli twitter.com/MartinShkreli/...."
Hmm... (Score:5, Interesting)
8chan seems to be getting by and they have twice as many chans.
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Considering that 8chan pretty much started 3 years ago and is now one in the top 5k boards in the US and top 10k worldwide, they seem to be doing okay.
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The amount of content isn't the issue. The cost is in views.
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The inescapable conclusion is that most people prefer a slightly less extreme site, one where there is considerable freedom to say what you like, but there are still some limits.
The inescapable conclusion, to me, is that the general public is too immature to be able to handle actual free speech and support it only until people start saying things they don't like, at which point those folks are to be silenced at any cost. You can frame it as "splitting the worst bits off", but there are plenty of radical "worst bits" still around on every site, Reddit and 4chan included, but they tend to just go along with the accepted narrative.
Disagreeing with someone while still protecting and ac
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I don't think it's that people can't handle free speech, it's just that a) not every wants to live life at MAX VOLUME all the time, and b) the risk of being attacked on those sites (e.g. by doxing) is high.
For your amusement. From /g/. (Score:5, Funny)
Notch now looking into buying 4chan Anonymous 10/03/16(Mon)19:51:42 No.56909338â->>56909384 >>56909411 >>56909683 >>56909721 >>56910005 >>56910058 >>56910195 >>56910297 >>56910483 >>56910593 >>56910655 >>56910945 /b/ got quads, summoning Notch to look into buying 4chan.
A lucky anon on
"Assuming it's not too expensive, and assuming I don't have to do any actual work myself, I'm in."
Who here would work for notch maintaining the 4chan codebase ?
Anonymous 10/03/16(Mon)19:56:06 No.56909384â- .jar
>>56909338 (OP)
>entire website will be Java based
>everything inside one
--
BMO
But then he will sell it to Microsoft (Score:2)
And they will release an edu version that only runs on Windows 10
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Jesus, how do you read that?
Threaded forums were invented for a reason. Flat threads don't scare well to a lot of users. Fark ran into the issue. Usenet ran into the issue. E-mail lists ran into the issue.
Re: For your amusement. From /g/. (Score:2)
>line eater food
There are extensions that do threading and all sorts of stuff. For chrome and Firefox.
>Usenet
>Threaded
Only if you turn it on in your newsreader.
--
BMO
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Threaded forums were invented for a reason.
Threaded forums are a poor clone of Usenet.
Sadly, Usenet has two issues:
Usenet was a one-stop location for every kind of threaded discussion imaginable; no need to visit a different forum for a different subject, and the interface was always the same from one group to the next.
Re: For your amusement. From /g/. (Score:2)
/ b/ and /pol/ are containment boards. Moot tried getting rid of /pol/ and the results were less than optimal. You don't want them to go away.
--
BMO
o_O (Score:4, Insightful)
A match forged in the deepest levels of Hell I guess?
4chan board of directors: Martin Shkreli, Palmer Luckey, ...
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Nah, Kimmie doesn't touch anything that could be connected with him having to do some work and is not raining free money on his fat ass.
the most punchable face (as its know) (Score:5, Informative)
http://nymag.com/daily/intelli... [nymag.com]
a fark theme, too, of course.
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Spare the hands, use a rock.
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So, the summary should go:
"Martin Shkreli, known for having the most punchable face on earth, says he's interested in buying 4chan" ?
Perfect. Do it now. (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't imagine a more perfect match for 4chan than Martin Shkreli. They absolutely and completely deserve each other forever.
Re:Perfect. Do it now. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Perfect. Do it now. (Score:5, Insightful)
People behave like assholes on 4chan to drive away the overly-sensitive. Many are refugees from other forums, where you get banned for diverging from the groupthink/using the wrong pronoun/supporting the wrong presidential candidate. They created an environment where people who complain about their feelings getting hurt by words on the internet get laughed out the door. Personally, I find its honest abrasiveness more refreshing than the passive-aggressive politeness of other forums.
Re:Perfect. Do it now. (Score:4, Insightful)
People behave like assholes on 4chan to drive away the overly-sensitive.
That doesn't make them not assholes. If the only way you can come up with to stop people from complaining about what you're saying constantly is to ante up on being a fuckhead... you're an asshole.
Personally, I find its honest abrasiveness more refreshing than the passive-aggressive politeness of other forums.
And personally, you like assholes. That's OK, but don't pretend something else is true.
Re:Perfect. Do it now. (Score:4, Interesting)
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The RPG.net forums list in its guidelines a set of banned topics, including Westboro Baptist Church, homosexuality, transgender people, spanking children and male circumcision. That's probably the most ban-happy place I've frequented, but there's plenty of others.
I was banned from Facebook for three days, for mentioning "Ten Little Niggers", in a thread about old books that had their title changed for political correctness.
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If someone behaves like an asshole, online or offline, he is an asshole. Any further distinction is irrelevant.
I agree, but that opinion is incredibly rare. Not only that it seems to go both ways. I've been a member of a forum which had a significant AFK presence. An awful lot of people appeared to consider the online and offline personas as completely different people. You'd get people saying things approaching "oh yes, I mean sure he is a known thief, a vandal, has a toothbrush moustache and is actually l
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That's exactly what would make it hilarious. Can you imagine the 4chan crowd doing their worst to destroy their own "home" out of spite?
Sk??? (Score:2)
I read "Skillrex" when I was skimming message title. Very odd.
But, at least he has more money than Shkreli to fund 4chan.
Wrong date on this story (Score:3)
It's the beginning of October, not April.
And can the fine structure of spacetime even withstand Martin Shkreli and 4chan being in the same place simultaneously?
Let him buy it. (Score:2)
Then everyone can exit the site for the exciting new 4.1chan.
Crowdfunding campaign to save 4chan (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Crowdfunding campaign to save 4chan (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Crowdfunding campaign to save 4chan (Score:5, Informative)
OP is actually one of the very very few posts that deserves to end up with a "Score:5, Troll" distinction.
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> I didn't click on the link.
append a + to the end of goo.gl or bit.ly links to preview them.
prepend tinyurl.com with the preview subdomain to preview it.
there are also a plethora of url expander sites that you can put a url into and see the full url.
my favorite was longurl.org but it's defunct. ExpandURL is another.
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Gotta stop feeling amused (Score:2)
I think there is a much better financial model that no website or newswebsite is using. I've recommended it and suggested it and even advocated it to the point of offending people, but as far as I know, it remains untested. I'd even put some of my own money behind it if the opportunity existed, but as things stand, I feel entitled to sit back and laugh. Doubtless it's unjustified, but I guess we'll never know, will we?
Fortunately, I don't care about 4chan and won't miss it.
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I think there is a much better financial model that no website or newswebsite is using. I've recommended it and suggested it and even advocated it to the point of offending people, but as far as I know, it remains untested. I'd even put some of my own money behind it if the opportunity existed, but as things stand, I feel entitled to sit back and laugh. Doubtless it's unjustified, but I guess we'll never know, will we?
No, we do know. We know that you haven't put your labor where your smug is and produced a website that uses this system in order to test whether it really is superior. Nerd up and write some code, or STFU
Ah Ha! (Score:2)
I predict- this will fix the internet!!
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In the veterinary sense, I guess?
Right price (Score:2)
Sign of things to come (Score:3)
This is what all websites will face eventually.
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People are willing to pay if the prices is right and the convenience is there.
Are they ok whipping their credit card out for a monthly/annual subscription on every site they visit? No way, but that doesn't mean they are unwilling to pay anything.
Micropayments have been proposed for years as an alternative to advertising but it hasn't been practical to enter payment data for every web site, or to make payments less than a dollar when there are credit card fees (and minimums?).
Readability, Pocket/ReaditLater
"cut traffic to the site in half": is he retarded? (Score:2)
Cutting traffic means cutting ad revenue. Is this guy retarded? trolling? What is going on?
also server cost? Are they running on node.js or something?
>network fees
>or reducing the size of images that can be posted
why the hell are you self hosting images then? let imgur or other cancer take care of that (and the money from ads they inject because apparently you are incompetent).
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Makes sense (Score:3)
I think it makes perfect sense for a business troll to own a board that spawns online trolls. They can synergize their core competencies and raise trolling to new, unheard of, levels.
I wonder (Score:3)
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Because shutting down a site that has controversial and illegal (and borderline-illegal) material has always been a good way to stop the bad behavior? /b/ in particular) existing. If you're familiar with the SomethingAwful forums, 4chan is like a FYAD board in that it gives trolls and idiots someplace to go and get the stupidity out of their systems.
On the contrary, I think the internet is better for 4chan (and
And where do you think many of the great net memes first came from? Hint: it's not Slashdot.
I'm no
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Because shutting down a site that has controversial and illegal (and borderline-illegal) material has always been a good way to stop the bad behavior?
No, it's not a good way to stop bad behaviour, but if said bad behaviour causes the site to implode, then why should we help them stay afloat?
Re:Just let it fold and be done with it (Score:5, Insightful)
why should we help them stay afloat?
Lets hope 4chan stays afloat, because otherwise 4chan posters will be dispersed throughout other sites and communities. Like a cyst bursting into bloodstream.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yeah, because /b/tards only shitpost to /b/
They have already metastasized to the rest of the Internet.
I don't think it matters (Score:2)
Re:Just let it fold and be done with it (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets hope 4chan stays afloat, because otherwise 4chan posters will be dispersed throughout other sites and communities. Like a cyst bursting into bloodstream.
Do you really think 4channers aren't already at sites like Slashdot? When I see the odious behavior of some ACs here, I generally assume it's another bored kid with no social skills.
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All joking aside, I'm honestly curious if a site that fosters 'socially denigrated values' can actually encourage people to flee farther into their niche or if it just gives their inside voice a place to vent in isolation. Basically, if 4Chan never existed, would there be more trolling, 'obscenity', shaming, harassment, etc.. online or is having them all in voluntarily isolation actually of some sort of social benefit?
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Keep friends close and enemies closer? It could be argued the site is a relatively easy way to keep an eye on a lot of people who engage in that borderline illegal behavior. Shut it down and they'll scatter to who knows where. The problem won't disappear, you just won't know where to find it as easily.
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Nobody said anything about shutting it down except you. If a business goes bankrupt because they can't generate enough profits to cover expenses - there is nothing oppressive happening. It can often be a sad event - for the owners who invested in the business, the workers who are losing their livelihoods -even the customers who are losing their access to the product, but it's not an *evil* event.
There are plenty of evil forms of business bankruptcy - but this is literally a textbook example of the non-evil
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They started it, but the baton has been passed. I don't think there's a site which causes more people to be doxxed nowadays than Reddit for instance. Getting rid of 4chan won't accomplish anything.
It's hardly a hive of illegal content either, 4chan is a honeypot.
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I would like to see one month with Shkreli leading 4chan. Purely for the entertainment value. Then when we've had a good laugh, then let it fold.
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Re:Just let it fold and be done with it (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Just let it fold and be done with it (Score:4, Insightful)
what about /r/blacklivesmatter? was that also shut down? of course not.
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what about /r/blacklivesmatter? was that also shut down? of course not.
I'm quite disgusted that this has been modded up. There is definitely an element of blacklivesmatter that is subversive and just looking to stir up trouble, but they were formed as a counter-measure to several famous cases of cops shooting young black males when there were other and better courses of action. The point of BLM is equality, not racism. You can't piss on the whole movement because of a few asshats who align themselves with it.
It is not accurate to compare a white supremacy to blm.
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The point of BLM is equality, not racism. You can't piss on the whole movement because of a few asshats who align themselves with it.
It is not accurate to compare a white supremacy to blm.
Equality means people can indeed piss on the whole movement because of a few asshats who align themselves with it.
That is what mainstream politics and the press do to these sorts of political movements. That's what they did to the Tea Party, Occupy Movement, and now Black Lives Matter. Guilt by association is a pretty transparent tactic by parties aligned with various factions to undermine competing factions. And guilt by association in particular is the inherent weakness of populist movements because p
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"Now then, Savage, I want to talk to you about some charges that you've been bringing lately. I think that perhaps you're being a little over-zealous."
"Which charges did you mean then, sir?"
"Well, for instance this one: 'Loitering with intent to use a pedestrian crossing.' Savage, maybe you're not aware of this, but it is not illegal to use a pedestrian crossing, neither is 'smelling of foreign food' an offence."
"Are you sure, sir?"
"Also, there's no
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Are these stats real? Can anybody confirm?
http://www.breitbart.com/big-g... [breitbart.com]
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As long as blacks are more likely to resist arrest and commit crimes they will get shot more.
The way I use statistics is laughably naive.
FTFY.
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Yes, statistically black people are arrested more (not going down that rabbit hole), but ultimately race shouldn't matter in the course of police work at all. If someone is resisting, they should be restrained. If restraint is insufficient and there's credible danger for the officer, they have the right to defend themselves with lethal force. Those rules should apply evenly to all suspects evenly regardless of race.
Now, one would expect that if say hypothetically black people were 60% of violent offenders w
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SJW
DRINK!
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Erh... context?
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No it won't.
4chan is one of the roadblocks for a completely commercialized gentrified filtered internet, where you can get kicked out of it for badmouthing the wrong corporation.
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I would guess >90% of 4chan users block the holy hell out of anything that might've once gone to school with an ad.
Re:Altavista (Score:5, Interesting)
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> My guess is that he wants to be done with the site
This makes a lot of sense. It feels like he's very eager to throw the towel into the ring.
Probably not (Score:3)
He probably bought 4chan expecting ad revenues to match viewership/bandwidth usage without realizing it. Honestly ad blockers had been around ages so he pro
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The only way to bypass an ad-blocker is to serve the ads from the main site. Otherwise there is ALWAYS a way to block the ads, you simply can't serve them from alternative known domains and expect that they can't be blocked even by the simplest measures.
The reason sites don't do this is twofold, it removes the ad middleman who makes the biggest cut of revenue and the site is then responsible for the ad content. When it's not served from their network they can claim they didn't know but serving the ads from
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this seems highly suspicious
Well duh, some people would view this as an unfavorable outcome and human brains have evolved so well to quickly recognize patterns and relationships that they often equate coincidence or even completely unrelated events as conspiracy and this is being debated...on the internet! Of course it "seems" suspicious.
Re:Nishimura, with an h (Score:4, Informative)
It's just a different spelling for the same name.
Wikipedia says his name is ... um, Slashdot doesn't like Kanji - look it up here [wikipedia.org].
The most commonly used transliteration in English is Nishimura Hiroyuki, according to the Hepburn system of romaji. It's Nisimura when written using the Nihon-shiki or Kunrei-shiki system.
(Knowledge totally stolen from https://www.italki.com/questio... [italki.com])
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First, everyone should always block ads.
Second, I'm pretty sure all of 4chan knows this.
Third, 4chan is... lets just go with "special". I think it's pretty charming that you refer to them as "customers", too.
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Where do you even find ads appropriate for 4chan? As sleazy as all advertisers are, I still don't think you can find one for dickgirls with a yeast infection or similar fare.
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I'm sure there's many dildo and douche companies that would love to advertise to the dildos and douches that frequent 4chan...
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I'm sure those stupid online t-shirt companies fit the 4chan demographic. That and cheap-ass alcohol ads. Red bull, Mountain dew. Geek-culture ads. Anime and cartoon network paraphanalia. Whatever the 21st century equivalent of Spencer's gifts is.
Plenty of things that would probably work for 4chan.
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Ad blockers happened?
One more reason to be in favour of ad blockers. ;)
Re:And nothing of value was lost... (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't think of a more perfect person than Martin Shkreli to buy 4chan. It's ideal, really.
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An asshole buying a site filled with assholes?
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He is the sewage big gulp to their turdburger.
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4chan selling out to SJWs?
Somehow I'd rather believe that MS makes the Windows code base OSS.
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As with any other site, 4chan has some problem posters, but it's also where I go to get ideas for the D&D campaign I run, where I discuss the TV shows I'm interested in, and where I get help with issues with my gaming computer. The vast majority of the site contains civil (though not always interesting) discourse. The biggest issue I run into is when someone asks repeatedly for
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That concentrating boomer/gen x white nerds into one place makes for hilarious reading?
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The Shkreli is the person who should be subjected to 4chan day, night any all the time in between.
You can bet your ass that THEN you will be seeing cheaper drugs!
Re: inb4 (Score:5, Funny)
So Shkrelli wants to have one company that causes cancer, so his other company have more people to sell overpriced cancer drugs to.
Re:inb4 (Score:5, Funny)
I was ignoring 4chan before it was cool.
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4-who? You mean that support group for sociopathic outcasts who aren't smart enough to venture out onto the real internet?
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The questions is why that piece of garbage is still alive.
That's one of those people whose only reason to survive is that he ain't worth a nanosecond of jail time.
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I mean, it's a cesspool and I don't care for it, but it's literally an image board and you want to make it more about text.
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4chan is an internet plague. It deserves to die, and then to have a parade of it's users shit and piss on the grave.
No, 4chan (and these days 8chan) serves a purpose: containment.
If you close down the site, the patrons will go elsewhere. Like here.