>The difference here is that there is a high barrier of entry.
An even bigger difference might be that the financial goals Valve has as a community are more clear than the goal of "build a good anarcho-syndicalist commune". In my experience communities that have a goal to pursue that's external to the existence of the community are the ones that last while those that don't tend to descend into high school-like popularity contests and fail because of that.
BTW, is there anything HN would recommend reading on 1960s-1970s communes and, especially, ways in which they failed?
An even bigger difference might be that the financial goals Valve has as a community are more clear than the goal of "build a good anarcho-syndicalist commune". In my experience communities that have a goal to pursue that's external to the existence of the community are the ones that last while those that don't tend to descend into high school-like popularity contests and fail because of that.
BTW, is there anything HN would recommend reading on 1960s-1970s communes and, especially, ways in which they failed?