Seems pretty legit to me: it's of interest, both actually and conceptually, it could inspire discussion, and it's just flat-out cool. Besides, HN is full of ad

Seems pretty legit to me: it's of interest, both actually and conceptually, it could inspire discussion, and it's just flat-out cool. Besides, HN is full of ads: hiring boards, show HNs of products HN users have worked on, various nonsense from HN startups, ads from other companies popping up on the front page ("hey, our new product launched this week"), and so on. And that's not even mentioning all the advertising for projects that users do inside threads: How often have you heard kaz essentially advertising TXR, his project? (although to his credit, he only does it when it's relevant to the discussion, or if TXR would help with a problem another user mentioned: many are less restrained).