No need to apologise. It was delightfully ironic to have achievements there, regardless of intention. In the end, you have to ask yourself who it benefits, and

No need to apologise. It was delightfully ironic to have achievements there, regardless of intention. In the end, you have to ask yourself who it benefits, and at whose expense. Intent matters a lot. In this case, there's no case for growth hacking. It would be different if I hosted this post on a professional website. I run a content website, and I constantly need to remind my business partners that I answer to my readers, not to them. If you perceive the internet as a giant conversion funnel, users become a lot more like cattle: a commodity whose well-being is only considered in support of profit. The incentives are all geared towards squeezing users.