/u/spez is right about feudalism and that's why Reddit is doomed
I’d be interested to see where if at all the economic incentives in these systems reflect previous political systems (like feudalism) - my guess is that this is where the metaphors break down.<p>For example there was a tangible consumable result of sharecropping - food that you eat. Youtube is the same sharecropping system, you get a small percentage of the product you produce (advertising revenue) for the organization (YouTube) who provide the property that you use.<p>For a feudalism - Reddit comparison, where is the economic compensation? Answer: there isn’t any that is facilitated by the platform.<p>So this can’t be compared as it’s a different economic system. I’ve heard it argued that some moderators are getting paid or whatever but I’ve seen no evidence of this and as a moderator and founder of 100,000 person Sub, that is very popular fora small community, at no point have we been approached as the moderator team by Reddit or otherwise, to be compensated for our work. Reddit uses 100% volunteer work and the entirety of the Reddit content moderation structure is Volunteer on top of a strict corporate hierarchy. I’m not actually sure we have a name for that in political theory (anyone have any ideas?)<p>I appreciate the differentiation here - even if there’s limited expected application for the layperson using the phrase colloquially in an Internet forum.