Are Comments Dead, or Have Media Outlets Just Given Up on Them?

Every few weeks, it seems, another media outlet kills off its reader comments, saying they are filled with trolls and spam and/or they are too much effort to maintain. This week it’s Vice’s tech site Motherboard, which claims that it has replaced comments with something better — namely, a selection of emailed letters to the editor, which editor-in-chief Derek Mead says will be published once a week “or thereabouts.”