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Not to be the curmudgeonly anti-HN/YC person :) but there are totally ads on HN: - Promoted posts from YC companies hiring - "Launch HN" posts - "Application

Not to be the curmudgeonly anti-HN/YC person :) but there are totally ads on HN: - Promoted posts from YC companies hiring - "Launch HN" posts - "Applications are open for YC Summer 2022" banner at the bottom of the site - The whole site is sort-of an ad for a big VC firm Either way, I suspect having the pulse on tech and mindshare of the tech community is worth more to YC (in $ terms) than money from banner ads.

wintermutestwin 5y ago
You are correct, but aren't these all examples of ads done right and in a way that is respectful of the users?
- thehappypm 5y ago
  “Native advertising” is a term for that.
- YaBomm 5y ago
nacs 5y ago
The number of times I've seen "EasyPost is hiring" alone..
aaron695 5y ago
Mountain_Skies 5y ago
I would have no problem with online advertising if it all took the same form as on HN. No embedded code, no tracking, no individual targeting, just an opportunity for the advertiser to inform the public of what they're offering and nothing else.
- geoduck14 5y ago
  >No embedded code, no tracking, no individual targeting How do you know we aren't being tracked? Like... what is preventing them from looking at their Load Balancer and seeing which posts Mountain_Skies looked at? We know for a fact that HN know which posts we vote up and down - how do we know they don't do anything with this information?
  - muzani 5y ago
    It's about the incentives. I don't trust Facebook or Google because deep in their DNA, they're advertising companies. They're not advertisers like Ogilvy; they're advertisers because they're really good at profiling people. So when they acquire companies like Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube with free products, I expect those products to add tracking and targeting even when they were strongly against it (esp. WhatsApp). YC however is the opposite. Their DNA is Paul Graham's essays. They put themselves up as the people who help the small guy. They need your trust. They use your HN history to evaluate your YC application and they're open about that. It's even on the undocumented features wiki that YC founders can see each other. Show HN is probably used for scouting startups. They need VC style data, which shows whether the founders are smart, resilient, and whether the startups they make have potential. So yeah, they probably do track you, but not in the creepy stalker way Google does.

wintermutestwin 5y ago

You are correct, but aren't these all examples of ads done right and in a way that is respectful of the users?

thehappypm 5y ago
“Native advertising” is a term for that.
YaBomm 5y ago

nacs 5y ago

The number of times I've seen "EasyPost is hiring" alone..

aaron695 5y ago

Mountain_Skies 5y ago

I would have no problem with online advertising if it all took the same form as on HN. No embedded code, no tracking, no individual targeting, just an opportunity for the advertiser to inform the public of what they're offering and nothing else.

geoduck14 5y ago
>No embedded code, no tracking, no individual targeting How do you know we aren't being tracked? Like... what is preventing them from looking at their Load Balancer and seeing which posts Mountain_Skies looked at? We know for a fact that HN know which posts we vote up and down - how do we know they don't do anything with this information?
- muzani 5y ago
  It's about the incentives. I don't trust Facebook or Google because deep in their DNA, they're advertising companies. They're not advertisers like Ogilvy; they're advertisers because they're really good at profiling people. So when they acquire companies like Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube with free products, I expect those products to add tracking and targeting even when they were strongly against it (esp. WhatsApp). YC however is the opposite. Their DNA is Paul Graham's essays. They put themselves up as the people who help the small guy. They need your trust. They use your HN history to evaluate your YC application and they're open about that. It's even on the undocumented features wiki that YC founders can see each other. Show HN is probably used for scouting startups. They need VC style data, which shows whether the founders are smart, resilient, and whether the startups they make have potential. So yeah, they probably do track you, but not in the creepy stalker way Google does.