Of course, I don't mean website like Diaspora, GNU Social, Mastodon, Steemit, or DTube. But more specifically centralized websites. Particularly if the website in question is freemium, or even if perhaps the website had recently became freemium, and for a long time have had most of their site freely available. It highlights the important difference between Free as in Libre, and Free as in Gratis.
I've used many websites in my time, and so far it seems like web comic people have been the nicest or most chill. That or I'm simply more used to that culture. There are certain exceptions I wont mention by name. All this to say, it seems like centralized power structures do more to help corrupt moderation of websites, rather than letting the readers themselves decide what constitutes content worth reading.
One website in particular for writers, is now partnering with television studios in Canada, as if there was already any question whether the site was going downhill and becoming less free. Overseas, in some ways it's an even grimmer picture, with recent legislation being considered that would ban writers from distributing their content under the creative commons license.
To my writing websites that mainly focus on publishing fan fiction, simply are not useful to me. Certainly I've written, and have no problem with fan fiction. But there is a reason why I asked one person, if DTube was going to disproportionately advertisement prominent stars over the everyman video maker. Because generally, in the centralized website's I've been to, they screw over the individual writer that isn't published by big name publishing houses like Harper Collins, by having their own (arguably worse) form of gate keeping: websites that post free content are not immune authors gaming the system.
In order for me to consider content publishing useful, both small producers and prominent youtube stars need to have an equal chance at getting views. Name recognition is not an excuse. Content should be judged on it own merits. That doesn't even begin to go into the clique like culture that surrounds writing and content publishing websites.
I'm tired of being treated like a chew toy by centralized websites. But there needs to be enough of a difference in decentralized websites to keep me coming back.