4 ms·

How do you suppose the site make money off their visits? To me what you want sounds like freeloading.

by AdamM12 8y ago

craftyguy 8y ago
You seem to have no problem 'freeloading' HN.
- AdamM12 8y ago
  They don't run ads to generate revenue. Most content sites do.
  - makapuf 8y ago
    You can definitely put ads without deep profiling. They can even be relevant. Just advertise for fishing accessories in fishing articles. Or hardware load balancers on Slashdot. Why not? Better than serving me whatever someone in my family has looked before (that is if I didn't have an adblocker for the past 10 tears)
    - taysic 8y ago
      Probably most content people read does not easily translate to a product as in your fishing example. Generally, ads with no targeting are not very profitable.
      - makapuf 8y ago
        My point was there can be targeting on content. Magazines have ads. Are they as profitable as privacy invading content ? Maybe not but they're tolerable.
  - usepgp 8y ago
    There are ads on the front page designed to look like content.
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    There are ads on HN (the "xyz is hiring", and I suspect a non-zero number of articles posted/promoted to the front page are paid ads made to look like content.
    - AdamM12 8y ago
      Ok so how's that work for a news site? Don't they need some kind of tracking to get relevant info on what their users are interested in?
      - craftyguy 8y ago
        You can gauge user interest by, for example, counting page views. You don't need to fingerprint users, create a catalog of all articles they view, try to guess their interest in certain topics using "AI", and do all the other absurdity that they think they "need" to do now.
        AdamM12 8y ago
        IMO you could just go to another site that doesn't. To each their own.
    - true_religion 8y ago
      The hiring ads are not external ads. HN is 100% a marketing and PR tool to generate good will amongst developers, and startup founders. If it ever starts to not benefit ycombinator, then the aite goes away.

How do you suppose the site make money off their visits? To me what you want sounds like freeloading.

craftyguy 8y ago

You seem to have no problem 'freeloading' HN.

AdamM12 8y ago
They don't run ads to generate revenue. Most content sites do.
- makapuf 8y ago
  You can definitely put ads without deep profiling. They can even be relevant. Just advertise for fishing accessories in fishing articles. Or hardware load balancers on Slashdot. Why not? Better than serving me whatever someone in my family has looked before (that is if I didn't have an adblocker for the past 10 tears)
  - taysic 8y ago
    Probably most content people read does not easily translate to a product as in your fishing example. Generally, ads with no targeting are not very profitable.
    - makapuf 8y ago
      My point was there can be targeting on content. Magazines have ads. Are they as profitable as privacy invading content ? Maybe not but they're tolerable.
- usepgp 8y ago
  There are ads on the front page designed to look like content.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  There are ads on HN (the "xyz is hiring", and I suspect a non-zero number of articles posted/promoted to the front page are paid ads made to look like content.
  - AdamM12 8y ago
    Ok so how's that work for a news site? Don't they need some kind of tracking to get relevant info on what their users are interested in?
    - craftyguy 8y ago
      You can gauge user interest by, for example, counting page views. You don't need to fingerprint users, create a catalog of all articles they view, try to guess their interest in certain topics using "AI", and do all the other absurdity that they think they "need" to do now.
      - AdamM12 8y ago
        IMO you could just go to another site that doesn't. To each their own.
  - true_religion 8y ago
    The hiring ads are not external ads. HN is 100% a marketing and PR tool to generate good will amongst developers, and startup founders. If it ever starts to not benefit ycombinator, then the aite goes away.