"I wonder if this is the eventual fate of all online communities. I've been through at least half a dozen now, and I've yet to see one survive as something other than trite, meaningless bullshit."
This is best described as "reversion to the mean". A democratic, non-moderated site like Reddit and News.YC will start off attracting folks on the right end of the bell curve, and over time, gain traction to attract the unwashed masses. Then, someone will get fed up and go start another site, and the cycle begins anew. I'm not being elitist or snobbish; this is what I have observed since the USENET of the 1990s. It always happens.
On the other hand, I've been a member of a loosely-moderated community for close to 7 years and it's still going strong (I think the forum first opened in 1999). There is a lot of what might be considered "trite" to a casual observer, but for those of us who have been reading and posting there for a long time we simply ignore the content we're not interested in. There's always enough good stuff to keep me going back.
It definitely was never overrun with ignoranuses, at least not for any extended period of time.
This is best described as "reversion to the mean". A democratic, non-moderated site like Reddit and News.YC will start off attracting folks on the right end of the bell curve, and over time, gain traction to attract the unwashed masses. Then, someone will get fed up and go start another site, and the cycle begins anew. I'm not being elitist or snobbish; this is what I have observed since the USENET of the 1990s. It always happens.