>there's no reason why reddit should be valued any higher than a 4chan, and they're looking for one.
Part ways better PR (4chan rarely had "ban waves", and by design of the site and the community it's harder to make those stick). Part ways different focus; Reddit focused on regurgitating content, not the community. That came a few years later. Curation is always a valuable asset on the internet and the voting mechanic worked well enough in the beginning to curate pretty much any given topic.
Once that was set in stone, it was a seemless shift to target their growing audience with all kinds of ads and other engagement. 4chan remained more or less the same (focusing on image macros and community) while Reddit pursued to pretend to be facebook with it's newer features. The question that remains is will there be enough creators to keep the site in tow once the frustrated "old guard" inevitably leaves.
Part ways better PR (4chan rarely had "ban waves", and by design of the site and the community it's harder to make those stick). Part ways different focus; Reddit focused on regurgitating content, not the community. That came a few years later. Curation is always a valuable asset on the internet and the voting mechanic worked well enough in the beginning to curate pretty much any given topic.
Once that was set in stone, it was a seemless shift to target their growing audience with all kinds of ads and other engagement. 4chan remained more or less the same (focusing on image macros and community) while Reddit pursued to pretend to be facebook with it's newer features. The question that remains is will there be enough creators to keep the site in tow once the frustrated "old guard" inevitably leaves.