alt Hacker NewsI think we need to remove dystopian and elitist from the dictionary because at this point you can't breathe without being accused of it.
Deciding who is in or out is the fundamental basis of any community, that's freedom of association. That's what defines a community. A place anyone can enter is a train station bathroom and that's what the logical terminus of the open internet seems to be.
I think scopes/criteria/boundaries on communities are fine, I disagree that invite-only (as one implementation of community boundaries) is the future of online communities.
Although the statement "invite-only only is the future of online communities" isn't super well defined (what does it mean to "be the future"?), so I think the comments are debating past each other.