“even”… i think reddit’s follow ups were least likely to succeed because they were the least organic!

place was special (at first) because it was a bunch of people with no time to plan and prepare… it was humans doing human things with all the limitations and creativity that came with that

other iterations of place were bots and pre-planned “stake our claim” rather than making something interesting and different… it was kinda all just the same as the last one but with subtle “meme of the moment” tweaks

You could argue that place was a copy. Before that you had The Million Dollar Homepage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Million_Dollar_Homepage?wprov=sfla1) in 2005, where companies could buy a pixel for a dollar. I have a hard time believing that it didn't have some influence over the creation of place.

I wasn’t around for 2017 but 2022 was the most fun I’ve had with internet strangers in years, if not ever. Also no one was ready for the expanding canvas and everyone scrambling over it was beautiful.