These days for me, the content that is considered an Ad is really anything that makes a large company profit, or anything that is possibly a scammy or low value

These days for me, the content that is considered an Ad is really anything that makes a large company profit, or anything that is possibly a scammy or low value product. I don't consider an individual trying to gain attention for their independent work as an ad... And it can be far more easily ignored than a bunch of corporate employees brigading online about Tesla or Uber on a daily basis, and getting away with it in droves. That being said, I think sometimes it's better to just reply based on the title and theme of the HN post and not focus on the other promotional elements or ignore the post altogether provided that the poster is not really trying to spam or deceive us... Coming up with creative ways to work your own struggling ideas into conversations online is not really easy when you don't have a marketing staff and lots of ad money.