5 ms·

Ask HN: How does HN earn money to keep going?

10 points by bhnmmhmd 9y ago

dozzie 9y ago
It's a private venture of Y Combinator company. Why do you think it needs any earnings?
- bhnmmhmd 9y ago
  I'm curious because it takes a lot of time and attention by moderators to keep the HN atmosphere as civil and informative as we experience now. How are the moderators compensated? There are no ads or anything on HN.
  - whb07 9y ago
    Do you know what Y Combinator is? They are hugely successful and have enough operating funds to maintain more than one site like HN. Even if it was just a simple hobby site by PG and it actually cost him a non-trivial amount of money to run/maintain, he is still doing it. He likes his hobby so he takes money from his job/investments and spends it on his hobby. Just like you when you buy your computer game, how are you affording it?
  - crypticlizard 9y ago
    There are advertisements placed on the front page by yc companies looking to hire.
    - bhnmmhmd 9y ago
      I always thought they're free.
      - crypticlizard 9y ago
        If it was free anyone could post ads looking to hire. It's exclusive advertising to a high value potential customer.
- jabv 9y ago
  I don't think this is intended as a dig on YC-funded companies, but it would work very well as such.
dsacco 9y ago
Hacker News is actually relatively cheap to run, because Y-Combinator owns and maintains the server hardware in-house. Instead of paying a monthly bill to a cloud company, they opted to pay a lot (relatively) for a dedicated server and amortize the cost. The only ongoing costs are electricity, internet bandwidth and (I assume) offsite backups. The last information 'dang confirmed was that Hacker News is a server with something like 256GB RAM, dual 3Ghz decacore Xeon CPUs and 10TB of storage space (I'd guess maybe closer to 20 these days). That costs a few thousand to build, including the motherboard, case, power supply and a good cooling solution. Unfortunately, you'd probably pay the total cost of the hardware per month with a cloud service :) So that's the hardware. Y-Combinator also has (at least two) full-time moderators who need to be paid. But while it might not directly bring in any revenue, Hacker News is one of the best industry watering holes. It's a powerful brand mechanism that brings together a lot of high-signal people that are either worth investing in for startup ventures or who are capable of helping those that Y-Combinator chooses to invest in. It doesn't need to see direct returns on the forum because it offers excellent human capital for seeding investments and ideas (see Dropbox, for example).
- bhnmmhmd 9y ago
  Thank you, this answer is what I was looking for.
- miguelrochefort 9y ago
  > The last information 'dang confirmed was that Hacker News is a server with something like 256GB RAM, dual 3Ghz decacore Xeon CPUs and 10TB of storage space (I'd guess maybe closer to 20 these days). Wow, that's a lot more than I expected, considering how simple and lightweight the website is.
  - dontJudge 9y ago
    Doesn't mean all the space is used. And 10TB isn't a big deal. El-cheapo laptops used by soccer moms have 1-2TB drives.
    - 9y ago
mememaestro 9y ago
By convoluting HN comments and build a user profile that they sell to 3rd-party companies

10 points by bhnmmhmd 9y ago

dozzie 9y ago

It's a private venture of Y Combinator company. Why do you think it needs any earnings?

bhnmmhmd 9y ago
I'm curious because it takes a lot of time and attention by moderators to keep the HN atmosphere as civil and informative as we experience now. How are the moderators compensated? There are no ads or anything on HN.
- whb07 9y ago
  Do you know what Y Combinator is? They are hugely successful and have enough operating funds to maintain more than one site like HN. Even if it was just a simple hobby site by PG and it actually cost him a non-trivial amount of money to run/maintain, he is still doing it. He likes his hobby so he takes money from his job/investments and spends it on his hobby. Just like you when you buy your computer game, how are you affording it?
- crypticlizard 9y ago
  There are advertisements placed on the front page by yc companies looking to hire.
  - bhnmmhmd 9y ago
    I always thought they're free.
    - crypticlizard 9y ago
      If it was free anyone could post ads looking to hire. It's exclusive advertising to a high value potential customer.
jabv 9y ago
I don't think this is intended as a dig on YC-funded companies, but it would work very well as such.

dsacco 9y ago

Hacker News is actually relatively cheap to run, because Y-Combinator owns and maintains the server hardware in-house. Instead of paying a monthly bill to a cloud company, they opted to pay a lot (relatively) for a dedicated server and amortize the cost. The only ongoing costs are electricity, internet bandwidth and (I assume) offsite backups. The last information 'dang confirmed was that Hacker News is a server with something like 256GB RAM, dual 3Ghz decacore Xeon CPUs and 10TB of storage space (I'd guess maybe closer to 20 these days). That costs a few thousand to build, including the motherboard, case, power supply and a good cooling solution. Unfortunately, you'd probably pay the total cost of the hardware per month with a cloud service :) So that's the hardware. Y-Combinator also has (at least two) full-time moderators who need to be paid. But while it might not directly bring in any revenue, Hacker News is one of the best industry watering holes. It's a powerful brand mechanism that brings together a lot of high-signal people that are either worth investing in for startup ventures or who are capable of helping those that Y-Combinator chooses to invest in. It doesn't need to see direct returns on the forum because it offers excellent human capital for seeding investments and ideas (see Dropbox, for example).

bhnmmhmd 9y ago
Thank you, this answer is what I was looking for.
miguelrochefort 9y ago
> The last information 'dang confirmed was that Hacker News is a server with something like 256GB RAM, dual 3Ghz decacore Xeon CPUs and 10TB of storage space (I'd guess maybe closer to 20 these days). Wow, that's a lot more than I expected, considering how simple and lightweight the website is.
- dontJudge 9y ago
  Doesn't mean all the space is used. And 10TB isn't a big deal. El-cheapo laptops used by soccer moms have 1-2TB drives.
  - 9y ago

mememaestro 9y ago

By convoluting HN comments and build a user profile that they sell to 3rd-party companies