The first time I saw this happen was clear back in 1997 with an IRC system called "Talk City". It was a dot-com startup that grew out of the incredibly vibrant, close-knit chat-room community which developed on Apple's short-lived "eWorld" service, carrying forward most of its people and culture... right up until the company signed a couple of big money-making deals, one with WebTV and the other with some ISP in India, connecting their customers to Talk City's network.
It was amazing to watch, in a kind of natural-disaster way, as hordes of strangers showed up practically overnight - far too quickly to be assimilated - and the whole social fabric dissolved. A community I had spent at least an hour a day on for several years simply disappeared under the flood.
The first time I saw this happen was clear back in 1997 with an IRC system called "Talk City". It was a dot-com startup that grew out of the incredibly vibrant, close-knit chat-room community which developed on Apple's short-lived "eWorld" service, carrying forward most of its people and culture... right up until the company signed a couple of big money-making deals, one with WebTV and the other with some ISP in India, connecting their customers to Talk City's network.
It was amazing to watch, in a kind of natural-disaster way, as hordes of strangers showed up practically overnight - far too quickly to be assimilated - and the whole social fabric dissolved. A community I had spent at least an hour a day on for several years simply disappeared under the flood.