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why does metafilter think they're in the right to change those affiliate links and steal those rewards? why would anyone bother responding to posts on their si
by there 17y ago
why does metafilter think they're in the right to change those affiliate links and steal those rewards? why would anyone bother responding to posts on their site knowing that not only can they not get rewarded for responding with a recommendation, but that metafilter is stealing the reward from them?
i don't understand the aversion to affiliate links. if someone buys a book from amazon based on my recommendation (and link), amazon thanks me by giving me a portion of their profit on the sale. that shopper doesn't pay extra money, the author doesn't receive less money, and i am rewarded for taking the time to respond to that person's question.
- bd 17y agoAs far as I'm aware, MetaFilter users are pretty much ok with this way of supporting the site (they were actually asked before implementing this [1]). In fact, it was frowned upon posting affiliate links with users' codes. [1] http://metatalk.metafilter.com/11174/Im-proposing-a-small-change-to-amazon-URLs http://metatalk.metafilter.com/11174/Im-proposing-a-small-ch...
- bmm6o 17y ago> why does metafilter think they're in the right to change those affiliate links and steal those rewards? Because that is the policy that the moderators and community arrived at. Some people think that allowing affiliate links incentivizes behavior detrimental to the site. You are free to disagree, but calling it "stealing" is begging the question.
- tlrobinson 17y agoAllowing affiliate links gives people an incentive to push products which they wouldn't necessarily recommend otherwise. Stripping affiliate links is kind of like nofollow for search engines.