3 ms·

why?

• someperson 14y ago
  It incentives spam. I have less of a problem with comments containing referral links since that's clearly the author's opinions, but I see submissions should have less blatant commercial interest. HN already frowns upon self-submission of personal blog posts (if it's interesting enough for HN the argument goes, it would be submitted by a 3rd party). How can I trust a website recommendations from a website like Coding Horror when every Amazon link generates a commission. It's encouragement to sell expensive products rather than more suitable ones. I generally remove the referral query from URLs when I click through.
• someperson 14y ago
  It incentives spam. I have less of a problem with comments containing referral links since that's clearly the author's opinions, but I see submissions should have less blatant commercial interest. HN already frowns upon self-submission of personal blog posts (if it's interesting enough for HN the argument goes, it would be submitted by a 3rd party). How can I trust a website recommendations from a website like Coding Horror when every Amazon link generates a commission. It's encouragement to sell expensive products rather than more suitable ones. I generally remove the referral query from URLs when I click through.