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> You are ignoring the fact that most of the writers are bullshit vendors regurgitating books, quotes, themes and things they read from somewhere else. I don't
by paulcole 4y ago
> You are ignoring the fact that most of the writers are bullshit vendors regurgitating books, quotes, themes and things they read from somewhere else.
I don't understand the vitriol HN has for professional writers and anyone who might work in gasp marketing.
Replace "writers" with "programmers" and your statement is still true but you don't hear it being shouted from the rooftops on every post about programming on HN.
- coldtea 4y ago>I don't understand the vitriol HN has for professional writers and anyone who might work in gasp marketing. Let's say we'd be better off without anyone working in, gasp, marketing. Companies might sell less, but society would be much better of.
- ghaff 4y agoGo build it. See how many people discover yourGitHub repository without so much as a coherent explanation of what problem your code solves. (And, yes, that's marketing.) If I had a nickel for every website I opened up and then closed because after 5 minutes I had no idea what the company or product did or why I should care, I'd be rich. Might be something really clever. Dunno. I just know it's 5 minutes of my life I'm not getting back because some techie thought their genius would be obvious to all.
- coldtea 4y ago>Go build it. See how many people discover yourGitHub repository without so much as a coherent explanation of what problem your code solves. (And, yes, that's marketing.) Only in a pedantic sense. We could live with non-commercial marketing, if you want to call it that, without an advertising budget, ads, sponsored articles, and other such BS - like, say, the author promoting their FOSS on their blog. Or crafting a nice looking page with an enticing description. As for commercial companies not being able to sell their products in that case, the world's smallest violin plays a heart-felt tune for them...
- ghaff 4y agoIt's by no means pedantic. A lot of companies don't do a lot of advertising or sponsored articles but do spend a huge amount of money on informational articles (i.e. content marketing), trade show booths and paying employees who have talks accepted there to attend, developer days, webinars, meetups, other forms of engagement with developers and other users, etc. (And coherent copy on the website which sure doesn't come for free--which is also marketing.)
- paulcole 4y agoHow would they sell at all? Or is this one of those situations where you ignore the marketing you do like when painting with the broad brush of marketing=bad.
- coldtea 4y ago>How would they sell at all? They wouldn't unless the product was needed and worth it enough to stand on its own via word of mouth and reputation. That's the main benefit.
- paulcole 4y agoWhat do you think word of mouth and reputation are other than forms of marketing?
- coldtea 4y agoBecause regular honest word of mouth are not what people refer to as marketing, and have been a thing since before marketing was a career. A marketeer might want to stir up "word of mouth" or build a product's reputation artificially. But I refer to good ole organic word of mouth and reputation built without marketing. You know, just by buyers recommending it to other buyers, and the product getting recommended because they use it and see it's good. The way those things are normally understood, just like how "love" normally is understood as two persons taking a liking to one another, and not e.g. as in some guy stopping his car in a shady end of the city and paying $50 dollars in exchange for sex.
- manuelmoreale 4y agoYou can apply the same logic and expand your take to the point where almost everything non essential is included. I don’t think it’s useful to look at the world that way. And I say that as someone who absolutely despise marketing and advertising.
- sremani 4y agoThis is petty argument -- there are more writers than programmers and then there is context of the situation where we are talking about a writing. I grew up in a culture and with an idea that there is no bad book -- trust me, I wasted years chasing some bad ideas from shallow content. So, the Bullshit vendors earned my vitriol.