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Concerned about the number of lightweight marketing blog posts making it to the front page of HN. It’s like it’s part of the “marketing to devs” playbook at thi

Concerned about the number of lightweight marketing blog posts making it to the front page of HN. It’s like it’s part of the “marketing to devs” playbook at this point.

nine_k 3y ago
Devs tend to know less about marketing than might be optimal for them. And the startup / side project crowd certainly needs some marketing knowledge. No wonder sometimes such posts get upvoted as useful or even insightful.
jmacd 3y ago
fwiw this post was written entirely by Isaac. It's not ghost written or edited for marketing purposes. The title might be a bit catchy/glib.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- swyx 3y ago
  there's way more shameless titles that make it on HN. i dont see a problem with this one at all - clear thesis statement, invitation to read more.
- IsaacSchlueter 3y ago
  > written entierly by Isaac I see what you did there ;)
danenania 3y ago
Is it really “lightweight”? Have you ever run a business and been responsible for pricing strategy? I have, and I thought the post made a good point—if pricing is tightly coupled to billing implementation, it discourages experimentation since pricing changes are technically non-trivial. If you don’t relate to that, maybe the post just isn’t for you? HN is a forum for engineers and entrepreneurs—it’s run by a startup accelerator, after all. Not everything on it has to be purely technical.
- icapybara 3y ago
  None of that changes the fact that this is marketing for their product. Many similar posts have made the front page of HN recently and it’s getting a bit formulaic. It’s great that you like some of them, but are you ok with HN just being a bunch of covert marketing copy?
  - sgallant 3y ago
    I don't see the issue here. They're solving a real problem for developers with their open-source solution and telling people about it.
  - danenania 3y ago
    Most content is marketing in some form. Would you complain about a developer who blogs about open source so they can get consulting projects or a job? If the content is good and I can learn something useful from it, it seems like a win-win.
    - doctorpangloss 3y ago
      Social media users who have impracticably many dead authors’ books to read and choose not to are always going to complain about the impacts of cultural materialism, one comment at a time.
    - jakefromstatecs 3y ago
      My main gripe with this article, is it mentions that their product was born as a result of a "painful expensive experience" of not creating a "Pricing Engine", but they don't at all elaborate on what that experience was. I want to know what problems that they built this to solve specifically, so that I can foresee future problems that I may run into. But they don't elaborate at all, and instead just mention that their product solves those unmentioned problems.
      - danenania 3y ago
        That’s fair. Having dealt with this myself, I’m very familiar with the pain involved, as I’d imagine most developers/entrepreneurs who have had to implement billing and then iterate on pricing are. It gets messy really fast. Perhaps they’re more targeting people like me who have experienced this issue and don’t really need it explained, but I agree going into more detail on the specific challenges is probably a good idea to appeal to a wider audience.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
totetsu 3y ago
I noticed that that guy who posted his "I asked HN founder X and here is their top 10 responses" blog got flagged. I think that is a bridge to far in building a self brand with content marketing.

Concerned about the number of lightweight marketing blog posts making it to the front page of HN. It’s like it’s part of the “marketing to devs” playbook at this point.

nine_k 3y ago

Devs tend to know less about marketing than might be optimal for them. And the startup / side project crowd certainly needs some marketing knowledge. No wonder sometimes such posts get upvoted as useful or even insightful.

jmacd 3y ago

fwiw this post was written entirely by Isaac. It's not ghost written or edited for marketing purposes. The title might be a bit catchy/glib.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
swyx 3y ago
there's way more shameless titles that make it on HN. i dont see a problem with this one at all - clear thesis statement, invitation to read more.
IsaacSchlueter 3y ago
> written entierly by Isaac I see what you did there ;)

danenania 3y ago

Is it really “lightweight”? Have you ever run a business and been responsible for pricing strategy? I have, and I thought the post made a good point—if pricing is tightly coupled to billing implementation, it discourages experimentation since pricing changes are technically non-trivial. If you don’t relate to that, maybe the post just isn’t for you? HN is a forum for engineers and entrepreneurs—it’s run by a startup accelerator, after all. Not everything on it has to be purely technical.

icapybara 3y ago
None of that changes the fact that this is marketing for their product. Many similar posts have made the front page of HN recently and it’s getting a bit formulaic. It’s great that you like some of them, but are you ok with HN just being a bunch of covert marketing copy?
- sgallant 3y ago
  I don't see the issue here. They're solving a real problem for developers with their open-source solution and telling people about it.
- danenania 3y ago
  Most content is marketing in some form. Would you complain about a developer who blogs about open source so they can get consulting projects or a job? If the content is good and I can learn something useful from it, it seems like a win-win.
  - doctorpangloss 3y ago
    Social media users who have impracticably many dead authors’ books to read and choose not to are always going to complain about the impacts of cultural materialism, one comment at a time.
  - jakefromstatecs 3y ago
    My main gripe with this article, is it mentions that their product was born as a result of a "painful expensive experience" of not creating a "Pricing Engine", but they don't at all elaborate on what that experience was. I want to know what problems that they built this to solve specifically, so that I can foresee future problems that I may run into. But they don't elaborate at all, and instead just mention that their product solves those unmentioned problems.
    - danenania 3y ago
      That’s fair. Having dealt with this myself, I’m very familiar with the pain involved, as I’d imagine most developers/entrepreneurs who have had to implement billing and then iterate on pricing are. It gets messy really fast. Perhaps they’re more targeting people like me who have experienced this issue and don’t really need it explained, but I agree going into more detail on the specific challenges is probably a good idea to appeal to a wider audience.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

totetsu 3y ago

I noticed that that guy who posted his "I asked HN founder X and here is their top 10 responses" blog got flagged. I think that is a bridge to far in building a self brand with content marketing.