500 Startups and YC's investments in 9gag were puzzling to me until Paul explained their plan and their traction to me. They're compelling. Don't blame the founders for the actions of the community, largely in the past: 9gag has a future.
Reddit was bought before it reached the heights it currently inhabits, but 9gag has a chance as a pre-exit company to inhabit a similar space for a different demo internationally as well as move into some pretty interesting verticals.
9GAG has grown to tens of millions of users and billions of page views per month in less than 2 years. the company was generating single-digit millions with a team of less than 10 people.
in short, it's a great business that has tremendous scale, and you haters can all go put a sock in it.
That was my point, it might not have the best content on the internet,but it clearly has a huge user base, and a very active one. I don't get why it wouldn't be a good investment decision.
Actually, I don't doubt that you have good reasons for investing in 9gag. I'm just not the target audience for the content. (And consequently think it's a bit crude.)
I'd originally posted (in response to sbierwagen) that 9gag receiving investments 'significantly altered my opinion of 9gag'. But then deleted it because the obvious interpretation wasn't my intended one. I figured the monetization scenario for 9gag might look good if PG +others are investing.
