A couple major differences here are:
* Not video
* Meant more for commmunity/interactivity
* Not individual algorithmic
So a site like this optimizes for most-user-upvoted content, to try to surface content that is found interesting by people who are presumably somewhat like you. That seems pretty different from a self-serving platform that optimizes for whatever keeps you from blinking.
absolutely!
- not ad driven
- not follower / likes driven (yes, there's karma but there's no concept of following people, notifications for likes, etc.)
- not engagement driven
- not algorithmically driven (yes, the home page is, but you can just do /active for example, or /new ; I rarely go the home page)
- there isn't an endless amount of "new content"
- no hosted content (you have to link to something to show it)
- no revenue