If you were hired to monetize HN, how would you go about it? Innovatively or traditionally.
Ask HN: How would you monetize HN?
1–10 of 21 posts
Re: Ask HN: How would you monetize HN?
#2Charge to add features. With a relatively simple baseline experience, there are always people looking to customize what they see on the site. Just look at the number of add-ons for browsers and alternatives/aggregators which exist.
Re: Ask HN: How would you monetize HN?
#3I thought it was moneterised - in a discreet and subtle manner.
I am also sure it brings pleasure to its creator - which is not to be undervalued.
Re: Ask HN: How would you monetize HN?
#4The traditional answer is that I would use it to promote and capture mindshare for a startup accelerator. An innovative improvement to the traditional answer is that I would pay people 1 cent for every upvote they receive. The first hypothesis is that this would increase mindshare and quality of discussion, the second is that this would in turn have a positive effect on the quality of startups in the accelerator. (I'm defining "monetize" to mean "make money using".)
Re: Ask HN: How would you monetize HN?
#5Would this be to monetize HN or a HN like website?
Re: Ask HN: How would you monetize HN?
#6Require karma to post, upvote and downvote. Then sell karma.
Re: Ask HN: How would you monetize HN?
#7By selling 8 small ad units along the top/side of the site, for $5k-$10k/each per month. They would sell out easily. Maybe give away one to a lucky startup each month.
I've often thought that it'd be awesome if HN had ads like this, and all the money was donated to the EFF or something. No one would mind and it would give them a huge new source of funding.
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Incidentally, it's occurred to me that this could be a successful startup idea. A startup could facilitate other companies "donating" ad space to worthy causes. The startup takes a small cut for selling/serving the ads. The donor just picks an ad unit style and drops in Javascript.
Re: Ask HN: How would you monetize HN?
#8It has a business purpose and the business it serves makes good money. As someone else said, is this thought experiment about monetizing some other forum "similar"* to HN or a thought experiment about monetizing this forum? Because monetizing this forum would likely be counterproductive to Y-Combinator's business goals, which HN currently serves.
* "Similar" is in quotes because I believe the life blood of HN is that it serves Y-Combinator's business goals and is not merely a forum. I think that is why no one can seem to replicate it or seriously "compete" with it.
Re: Ask HN: How would you monetize HN?
#9If I remember one of pg's posts (that I can't easily find right now), it was intended that YC is the way that HN is monetized. HN encourages smart people to start startups and apply to YC.
Re: Ask HN: How would you monetize HN?
#10It has a business purpose and the business it serves makes good money. As someone else said, is this thought experiment about monetizing some other forum "similar"* to HN or a thought experiment about monetizing this forum? Because monetizing this forum would likely be counterproductive to Y-Combinator's business goals, which HN currently serves. * "Similar" is in quotes because I believe the life blood of HN is that…
"It has a business purpose and the business it serves makes good money."
I've come to the conclusion that the best way to understand how to behave on HN is to treat HN as a place of business.