Mostly to inflate the startup echo chamber so that y combinator can cherry pick companies to invest into, I guess.
Ask HN: What is Hacker News's business model?
21–30 of 48 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is Hacker News's business model?
#22My humble perspective, HN serves several purposes: 1) Top of the funnel lead gen for emerging companies (for YC to invest in). 2) Persistent advertising for the YC brand. You can’t use HN without associating it with Y Combinator and by being useful it brings in millions of views to the brand at relatively little cost 3) A proprietary way to learn more about the founders they invest in. I’ve read a users HN profile (w…
The biggest benefit is market manipulation and collusion. What better than to run a "news site", know what your users (who many are C levels, or VC projects by YC) are watching and how and when they are commenting. By running that, they can glean an impressive amount of proprietary information. YC can also control the narrative. "Voting ring detectors", shadowbans, blacklist names on articles all have a real and a hi…
> YC can also control the narrative
This. I've been noticing a lot of flagging lately.
Re: Ask HN: What is Hacker News's business model?
#23For some reason this post reminded me of a new rule by by Bill Maher: Now, I know what you're thinking: "But, Bill, the profit motive is what sustains capitalism." Yes, and our sex drive is what sustains the human species, but we don't try to fuck everything.
I beg to differ on that last point, if history serves well as an example.
Re: Ask HN: What is Hacker News's business model?
#24My humble perspective, HN serves several purposes: 1) Top of the funnel lead gen for emerging companies (for YC to invest in). 2) Persistent advertising for the YC brand. You can’t use HN without associating it with Y Combinator and by being useful it brings in millions of views to the brand at relatively little cost 3) A proprietary way to learn more about the founders they invest in. I’ve read a users HN profile (w…
Interesting points. Do you think YC actively contacts inventors which just share their work/research with the world and suggests mentoring or drives toward business forming?
Re: Ask HN: What is Hacker News's business model?
#25My humble perspective, HN serves several purposes: 1) Top of the funnel lead gen for emerging companies (for YC to invest in). 2) Persistent advertising for the YC brand. You can’t use HN without associating it with Y Combinator and by being useful it brings in millions of views to the brand at relatively little cost 3) A proprietary way to learn more about the founders they invest in. I’ve read a users HN profile (w…
There’s also the posts that are marketing for ycombinator backed companies. Launches and stuff that are probably weighted a little higher so they stay on the front page longer. And of course selective screening for hiring from the group of people that are usually above average in the first place.
Re: Ask HN: What is Hacker News's business model?
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
The biggest benefit is market manipulation and collusion. What better than to run a "news site", know what your users (who many are C levels, or VC projects by YC) are watching and how and when they are commenting. By running that, they can glean an impressive amount of proprietary information. YC can also control the narrative. "Voting ring detectors", shadowbans, blacklist names on articles all have a real and a hi…
> YC can also control the narrative This. I've been noticing a lot of flagging lately.
I've seen a couple of popular posts removed from the front page.
The last one was criticizing Apple.
Re: Ask HN: What is Hacker News's business model?
#27My humble perspective, HN serves several purposes: 1) Top of the funnel lead gen for emerging companies (for YC to invest in). 2) Persistent advertising for the YC brand. You can’t use HN without associating it with Y Combinator and by being useful it brings in millions of views to the brand at relatively little cost 3) A proprietary way to learn more about the founders they invest in. I’ve read a users HN profile (w…
The biggest benefit is market manipulation and collusion. What better than to run a "news site", know what your users (who many are C levels, or VC projects by YC) are watching and how and when they are commenting. By running that, they can glean an impressive amount of proprietary information. YC can also control the narrative. "Voting ring detectors", shadowbans, blacklist names on articles all have a real and a hi…
>The biggest benefit is market manipulation and collusion.
Your claim would be more persuasive if you gave us a few specific examples.
Re: Ask HN: What is Hacker News's business model?
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
The biggest benefit is market manipulation and collusion. What better than to run a "news site", know what your users (who many are C levels, or VC projects by YC) are watching and how and when they are commenting. By running that, they can glean an impressive amount of proprietary information. YC can also control the narrative. "Voting ring detectors", shadowbans, blacklist names on articles all have a real and a hi…
> YC can also control the narrative This. I've been noticing a lot of flagging lately.
Flagging is done by users.
Re: Ask HN: What is Hacker News's business model?
#29Interestingly no one suggested YC could actively contacts inventors which just share their work/research with the world and suggest mentoring or drive toward business. It could be seen as a super early lead generator. How common/possible in this scenario?
Re: Ask HN: What is Hacker News's business model?
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
> YC can also control the narrative This. I've been noticing a lot of flagging lately.
I've seen a couple of popular posts removed from the front page. The last one was criticizing Apple.
Sure, HN is a curated site. Posts get removed from the front page all the time. This can be because of user flags, software action, and/or moderator action, in any permutation.
Edit: we don't moderate HN based on who is being criticized or praised, be it Apple or anyone else. If you're noticing stories criticizing Apple getting removed, you're probably a critic of Apple. If you were a fan of Apple, you'd notice stories praising Apple getting removed. I call this the notice-dislike bias (crappy name, but I don't know a better one): https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... This bias dominates people's perceptions of HN to such an extent that I don't think I've ever seen a single counterexample.