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> I personally don't see the problem with a referral link. Maybe it should have been labelled as such, just for the sake of transparency. I fully agree. I wo

> I personally don't see the problem with a referral link. Maybe it should have been labelled as such, just for the sake of transparency. I fully agree. I wouldn't remove it at all, just add a a mention that it is your referral link. This is free software folks. If the coffers aren't held out with donation links, I see nothing wrong with him getting a cut elsewhere. In fact, the nature of this software is unthanked work and relatively unknown to the general public. It addresses a real issue, and it addresses it for free. "Cheesy" is criticizing him for the referral link.

moron4hire 11y ago
No, it's criticizing him for not being forthright about it. I think it's important for people to know whether or not their activity is helping financially support someone. I may specifically want to support the project maintainer, so I will try to remember to use their referral link later if I don't have the time to do it now. Or I may specifically not want to support the maintainer, so I will circumvent their referral link. Either way, my job is made a lot easier if the maintainer discloses that the link is a referral link.
- tlibert 11y ago
  I removed it, I thought it was obvious once you clicked on the link. again, I'm a PhD student, I live at the poverty line and host this project myself.
  - fein 11y ago
    Honestly, you should have left it up there and told the first few to go <strike>fuck themselves</strike> find something better to do than criticize someone who gave them a FOSS program. Yeah, things that are free need to make money somehow, hence ads and ref links. It's asinine to think that a person should just give up their own cash to provide a free service. It's the epitome of using someone as a means to an end; and you're the one getting used.
    - tlibert 11y ago
      I do a lot of research, advocacy, and editorial work which is very critical of many powerful companies; I have to be sure there is no accidental impression I am "for" or "against" anybody or benefitting financially in any way from my research. that is actually why I changed it. any sane person can see that releasing my intellectual property for free wasn't an evil scheme to make $.25 from digital ocean. ;-)
Tinyyy 11y ago
How much do people get from these kinda referral links anyways? I feel that if you're only gonna get a few clickthroughs, then its not worth putting the link there and have people judge you / your intentions.
- FilterSweep 11y ago
  He admitted it in his response here: >in response to referral link comment: I host the site on my own dime so I didn't think getting $.25 from DO would make me a bad person...also, I really don't have time to learn windows to make instructions. I'm a grad student and make slightly above minimum wage annually, if I were to be evil and greedy I'd probably not be doing what I do with my life. I'm giving away thousands of hours of work and data I could make money off of doing evil things. >its not worth putting the link there and have people judge you / your intentions. This makes no sense to me. His intentions are clear. Far more clear than the intentions of third party HTTP requests on the big websites you visit. And you didn't even need to hear it from him himself to know that he hosts his site and needs a few shekels to support it. Of course, you're entitled to your own opinion, but I could really care less if people "judge" me for a DO link, and I hope the tilbert feels the same way. I don't understand in general this hate for people who post referral links. Do you not hover over a link before you click it? See all the garbage appended to the query string in the URL? If I don't want to click it, I don't. I don't hate the person for adding a referral link. I don't understand the hate for the people who do. Again, you're entitled to your own opinion but I'm not a fan of this minutiae being hammered in this HN thread. I'll just go to the website on a clean window and search the same product/website/service. Finally, the third party advertisers are judging him far more harshly for this software, anyways. Their corrupt model is (in a small way) subverted. If he was worried about "judgment" he wouldn't have offered this software in the first place.
  - Tinyyy 11y ago
    Huh? What provoked this strong response? I'm not hating anyone here. I'm just thinking about this from his / my potential perspective where if you've already put so much effort into the project expecting zero returns, why 'taint' your own product? Its like putting ads on personal blogs that's gonna get you a few bucks in a year. Maybe I'm just particular about these kinda stuff and want to keep things 'pure' and 'clean'.

moron4hire 11y ago

No, it's criticizing him for not being forthright about it. I think it's important for people to know whether or not their activity is helping financially support someone. I may specifically want to support the project maintainer, so I will try to remember to use their referral link later if I don't have the time to do it now. Or I may specifically not want to support the maintainer, so I will circumvent their referral link. Either way, my job is made a lot easier if the maintainer discloses that the link is a referral link.

tlibert 11y ago
I removed it, I thought it was obvious once you clicked on the link. again, I'm a PhD student, I live at the poverty line and host this project myself.
- fein 11y ago
  Honestly, you should have left it up there and told the first few to go <strike>fuck themselves</strike> find something better to do than criticize someone who gave them a FOSS program. Yeah, things that are free need to make money somehow, hence ads and ref links. It's asinine to think that a person should just give up their own cash to provide a free service. It's the epitome of using someone as a means to an end; and you're the one getting used.
  - tlibert 11y ago
    I do a lot of research, advocacy, and editorial work which is very critical of many powerful companies; I have to be sure there is no accidental impression I am "for" or "against" anybody or benefitting financially in any way from my research. that is actually why I changed it. any sane person can see that releasing my intellectual property for free wasn't an evil scheme to make $.25 from digital ocean. ;-)

Tinyyy 11y ago

How much do people get from these kinda referral links anyways? I feel that if you're only gonna get a few clickthroughs, then its not worth putting the link there and have people judge you / your intentions.

FilterSweep 11y ago
He admitted it in his response here: >in response to referral link comment: I host the site on my own dime so I didn't think getting $.25 from DO would make me a bad person...also, I really don't have time to learn windows to make instructions. I'm a grad student and make slightly above minimum wage annually, if I were to be evil and greedy I'd probably not be doing what I do with my life. I'm giving away thousands of hours of work and data I could make money off of doing evil things. >its not worth putting the link there and have people judge you / your intentions. This makes no sense to me. His intentions are clear. Far more clear than the intentions of third party HTTP requests on the big websites you visit. And you didn't even need to hear it from him himself to know that he hosts his site and needs a few shekels to support it. Of course, you're entitled to your own opinion, but I could really care less if people "judge" me for a DO link, and I hope the tilbert feels the same way. I don't understand in general this hate for people who post referral links. Do you not hover over a link before you click it? See all the garbage appended to the query string in the URL? If I don't want to click it, I don't. I don't hate the person for adding a referral link. I don't understand the hate for the people who do. Again, you're entitled to your own opinion but I'm not a fan of this minutiae being hammered in this HN thread. I'll just go to the website on a clean window and search the same product/website/service. Finally, the third party advertisers are judging him far more harshly for this software, anyways. Their corrupt model is (in a small way) subverted. If he was worried about "judgment" he wouldn't have offered this software in the first place.
- Tinyyy 11y ago
  Huh? What provoked this strong response? I'm not hating anyone here. I'm just thinking about this from his / my potential perspective where if you've already put so much effort into the project expecting zero returns, why 'taint' your own product? Its like putting ads on personal blogs that's gonna get you a few bucks in a year. Maybe I'm just particular about these kinda stuff and want to keep things 'pure' and 'clean'.