6 ms·

That's a good point, however considering that there are many thousands of books one might choose to read, by your logic the HN front page ought to be filled wit

That's a good point, however considering that there are many thousands of books one might choose to read, by your logic the HN front page ought to be filled with "add to cart" links for those books on Amazon. Frankly even Amazon lets you read a few pages of a book and reviews before deciding whether to purchase. I think the more important question is whether the HN home page should be directly supporting revenue generation efforts by media orgs. They contrive article titles to be clickbait, only to load a paywall when the user clicks with absolutely no context, no preview, etc. This is about HN taking a stand against being used simply as a revenue generation "channel" by media orgs. I'd be hard pressed to find a more intelligent, wealthy, and influential demographic than HN readers. News orgs have realized this and they actively promote stories on HN to drive revenue.

chrisseaton 10y ago
> This is about HN taking a stand My personal opinion, probably shared by others, is that I'm not really interested in HN 'taking a stand' about anything. The website is fine just doing its job without any aspirations to change the world. My advice would be to vote with your feet by not up-voting or visiting stories that you don't like. If other people feel the same way they'll die away. I would guess most people don't feel the same way, so they probably won't.
- grandalf 10y ago
  PG has written about the folly of paywalls, so it could simply be a stand against that. HN should not be a place where marketers go to get their clickbait stories viral "clicks" and "impressions".
  - chrisseaton 10y ago
    I'd rather HN was the kind of place that didn't take a stand against anything. It's a community utility and it would be a shame if it was abused to make points for issues which to be honest I think are at the student-politics level of petty things to be worked up about. I'm not being facetious when I say if you don't like them don't post them or read them. Please don't try and stop me reading or posting them just because you don't like them. Of course if the HN people themselves have a strong opinion on it they're entitled to do what they want with the site, but as the admins have said, they don't have that strong opinion.
    - grandalf 10y ago
      > I'd rather HN was the kind of place that didn't take a stand against anything. So would I. But it takes a stand against political discussion and against changing bad titles in submissions, so I think taking one against paywalls would at least be a beneficial stand to take.
      - chrisseaton 10y ago
        Ok, well nice debating with you but I don't think we'll agree on this topic so I won't keep bothering you.
        grandalf 10y ago
        No worries, I don't feel all that strongly about it, I do think it would be helpful to use the power of HN to encourage the NYT and others to offer free access to stories linked directly from HN.

chrisseaton 10y ago

> This is about HN taking a stand My personal opinion, probably shared by others, is that I'm not really interested in HN 'taking a stand' about anything. The website is fine just doing its job without any aspirations to change the world. My advice would be to vote with your feet by not up-voting or visiting stories that you don't like. If other people feel the same way they'll die away. I would guess most people don't feel the same way, so they probably won't.

grandalf 10y ago
PG has written about the folly of paywalls, so it could simply be a stand against that. HN should not be a place where marketers go to get their clickbait stories viral "clicks" and "impressions".
- chrisseaton 10y ago
  I'd rather HN was the kind of place that didn't take a stand against anything. It's a community utility and it would be a shame if it was abused to make points for issues which to be honest I think are at the student-politics level of petty things to be worked up about. I'm not being facetious when I say if you don't like them don't post them or read them. Please don't try and stop me reading or posting them just because you don't like them. Of course if the HN people themselves have a strong opinion on it they're entitled to do what they want with the site, but as the admins have said, they don't have that strong opinion.
  - grandalf 10y ago
    > I'd rather HN was the kind of place that didn't take a stand against anything. So would I. But it takes a stand against political discussion and against changing bad titles in submissions, so I think taking one against paywalls would at least be a beneficial stand to take.
    - chrisseaton 10y ago
      Ok, well nice debating with you but I don't think we'll agree on this topic so I won't keep bothering you.
      - grandalf 10y ago
        No worries, I don't feel all that strongly about it, I do think it would be helpful to use the power of HN to encourage the NYT and others to offer free access to stories linked directly from HN.