4 ms·

"How DARE you make money from this thorough, thoughtful, and well-researched post at no cost to me?!" I just never understand people's hatred for affiliate lin

"How DARE you make money from this thorough, thoughtful, and well-researched post at no cost to me?!" I just never understand people's hatred for affiliate links in good pieces of content.

minimaxir 11y ago
Posts with affiliate links tend to not fall on the side of "good pieces of content" and are instead optimized such that you click the links. EDIT: This is not the case with the posted article: see clarification below.
- nedwin 11y ago
  Do you think that's the case here? Personally I thought this was an awesome use of the dataset and introduced me to some new books I hadn't considered.
  - minimaxir 11y ago
    Oh, I missed that the posted article itself included the affiliate tags. In this case, yes, the content is good and the intent was not to drive visits to Amazon. (in contrast with a hypothetical post like "Top 10 Books You Should Buy To Be Smart According To The Nerds at Hacker News.") Sites/Medium posts have been trending toward the latter model of revenue generation in the face of declining ad revenue.
    - nedwin 11y ago
      I noticed a ton of this around Christmas time last year. At first I thought "this is super helpful" but soon turned to distrust.
    - nedwin 11y ago
      I noticed a ton of this around Christmas time last year. At first I thought "this is super helpful" but soon turned to distrust.
gkst 11y ago
The "I don't want to pay for content and all ads are evil" mindset is not really sustainable. For me affiliate links are the least obtrusive form of advertising on the web I'm aware of. Thanks for your comment and appreciation of the post.
donkeyd 11y ago
How do you imply that from their post? You could've asked why they want to know this, instead of just assume it's because they don't like it. Negativity is not good for anything.
grayclhn 11y ago
Eh, I'm of two minds here. 1) sure, there was effort put into this and it likely wouldn't have been made w/out affiliate links, so clearly there's value provided. 2) it's pretty clear that a list like this is going to underrepresent books where an amazon link is less likely --- superior free alternatives to the books listed in some cases. Using affiliate links (and, as far as I can tell, only undisclosed affiliate links) suggests that getting an accurate "top 30" wasn't the highest priority. So the affiliate links are a signal of intent, and intent affects accuracy in this case. But the list wouldn't have been written otherwise. "You've figured out a way to post native content advertising to Hacker News" would be the equally uncharitable counterpoint to your mock quote.
- irremediable 11y ago
  > it's pretty clear that a list like this is going to underrepresent books where an amazon link is less likely But the list was explicitly generated from Amazon links... wasn't that always going to be the case?
  - grayclhn 11y ago
    Yes, definitely. But that was a choice. There are tons of smart reasons to choose to generate the list from Amazon links, and one of them appears to have been, "because we know that they can be tagged with affiliate links."
    - gkst 11y ago
      As mentioned in the post Amazon is often the goto website for linking books, I've never seen a link to Barnes and Noble on HN, Reddit or the like. I took care to make clear that this is a limited sample and didn't claim generalizability anywhere in the post. Tagging the links was a conscious decision, but I do think that the approach of looking for Amazon links provides more insight than any other domain/online store.
      - grayclhn 11y ago
spdustin 11y ago
Hard to read tone in text-only messages, isn't it? I'd actually like an answer. I have no problem with the affiliate links at all (though the listicle-like gallery presentation is awkward on mobile), and would legitimately like to know if there are any real-world examples of affiliate links making money when targeting a specific community. I had affiliate links all over (organically, not in ad form) when I ran a popular SharePoint community, and I think I made ~$300 total in the year I had the links active. HN "feels" like a larger community than my old SharePoint community was, so the answer to My GP's query is interesting from an academic sense.
- m52go 11y ago
  Brain Pickings [1] is estimated to make a significant amount of money from affiliate links. The exact number is disputed, but it's not chump change [2]. [1] http://brainpickings.org http://brainpickings.org [2] https://gigaom.com/2013/02/14/the-brainpickings-brouhaha-and-the-problem-with-affiliate-links/ https://gigaom.com/2013/02/14/the-brainpickings-brouhaha-and...
tedmiston 11y ago
Agreed. I highly doubt the affiliate links would even generate enough to cover the OP's time spent creating this project for the community. "How dare you build a side project and attempt to offset the costs of hosting and a domain?"
anc84 11y ago
I did not mean it like that, I am genuinely interested.

"How DARE you make money from this thorough, thoughtful, and well-researched post at no cost to me?!" I just never understand people's hatred for affiliate links in good pieces of content.

minimaxir 11y ago

Posts with affiliate links tend to not fall on the side of "good pieces of content" and are instead optimized such that you click the links. EDIT: This is not the case with the posted article: see clarification below.

nedwin 11y ago
Do you think that's the case here? Personally I thought this was an awesome use of the dataset and introduced me to some new books I hadn't considered.
- minimaxir 11y ago
  Oh, I missed that the posted article itself included the affiliate tags. In this case, yes, the content is good and the intent was not to drive visits to Amazon. (in contrast with a hypothetical post like "Top 10 Books You Should Buy To Be Smart According To The Nerds at Hacker News.") Sites/Medium posts have been trending toward the latter model of revenue generation in the face of declining ad revenue.
  - nedwin 11y ago
    I noticed a ton of this around Christmas time last year. At first I thought "this is super helpful" but soon turned to distrust.
  - nedwin 11y ago
    I noticed a ton of this around Christmas time last year. At first I thought "this is super helpful" but soon turned to distrust.

gkst 11y ago

The "I don't want to pay for content and all ads are evil" mindset is not really sustainable. For me affiliate links are the least obtrusive form of advertising on the web I'm aware of. Thanks for your comment and appreciation of the post.

donkeyd 11y ago

How do you imply that from their post? You could've asked why they want to know this, instead of just assume it's because they don't like it. Negativity is not good for anything.

grayclhn 11y ago

Eh, I'm of two minds here. 1) sure, there was effort put into this and it likely wouldn't have been made w/out affiliate links, so clearly there's value provided. 2) it's pretty clear that a list like this is going to underrepresent books where an amazon link is less likely --- superior free alternatives to the books listed in some cases. Using affiliate links (and, as far as I can tell, only undisclosed affiliate links) suggests that getting an accurate "top 30" wasn't the highest priority. So the affiliate links are a signal of intent, and intent affects accuracy in this case. But the list wouldn't have been written otherwise. "You've figured out a way to post native content advertising to Hacker News" would be the equally uncharitable counterpoint to your mock quote.

irremediable 11y ago
> it's pretty clear that a list like this is going to underrepresent books where an amazon link is less likely But the list was explicitly generated from Amazon links... wasn't that always going to be the case?
- grayclhn 11y ago
  Yes, definitely. But that was a choice. There are tons of smart reasons to choose to generate the list from Amazon links, and one of them appears to have been, "because we know that they can be tagged with affiliate links."
  - gkst 11y ago
    As mentioned in the post Amazon is often the goto website for linking books, I've never seen a link to Barnes and Noble on HN, Reddit or the like. I took care to make clear that this is a limited sample and didn't claim generalizability anywhere in the post. Tagging the links was a conscious decision, but I do think that the approach of looking for Amazon links provides more insight than any other domain/online store.
    - grayclhn 11y ago

spdustin 11y ago

Hard to read tone in text-only messages, isn't it? I'd actually like an answer. I have no problem with the affiliate links at all (though the listicle-like gallery presentation is awkward on mobile), and would legitimately like to know if there are any real-world examples of affiliate links making money when targeting a specific community. I had affiliate links all over (organically, not in ad form) when I ran a popular SharePoint community, and I think I made ~$300 total in the year I had the links active. HN "feels" like a larger community than my old SharePoint community was, so the answer to My GP's query is interesting from an academic sense.

m52go 11y ago
Brain Pickings [1] is estimated to make a significant amount of money from affiliate links. The exact number is disputed, but it's not chump change [2]. [1] http://brainpickings.org http://brainpickings.org [2] https://gigaom.com/2013/02/14/the-brainpickings-brouhaha-and-the-problem-with-affiliate-links/ https://gigaom.com/2013/02/14/the-brainpickings-brouhaha-and...

tedmiston 11y ago

Agreed. I highly doubt the affiliate links would even generate enough to cover the OP's time spent creating this project for the community. "How dare you build a side project and attempt to offset the costs of hosting and a domain?"

anc84 11y ago

I did not mean it like that, I am genuinely interested.