> The idea that a fledgling social media company needs a moderation effort akin to Facebook in order to be allowed to even exist seems very anti-competitive to me
Moderation seems to be an activity that can scale linearly with users (content). So if you have 1/1000 the user base then you have roughly 1/1000 the moderation effort.
Of all the barriers to entry in the social
media market, moderation seems like the smallest one because it doesn't scale as well as other activities such as operation costs, development staff , and so on.
Of course, if you start a social media company with the intent to be a haven for content that "takes a lot of moderation effort" then obviously you are setting yourself up for a situation where it's difficult to compete. If you need 10x the number of moderation actions as facebook or twitter, then you have 10x the cost too.
Moderation seems to be an activity that can scale linearly with users (content). So if you have 1/1000 the user base then you have roughly 1/1000 the moderation effort.
Of all the barriers to entry in the social media market, moderation seems like the smallest one because it doesn't scale as well as other activities such as operation costs, development staff , and so on.
Of course, if you start a social media company with the intent to be a haven for content that "takes a lot of moderation effort" then obviously you are setting yourself up for a situation where it's difficult to compete. If you need 10x the number of moderation actions as facebook or twitter, then you have 10x the cost too.