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Comment by dunkelheit | Hacker News Reader

I have recently found that I can't trust most of the things written on the internet anymore. Every piece of writing is suspect and that's incredibly tiring. It just seems that PR-media-marketing juggernaut is always on the look for things that are perceived as trustworthy and trying its best to simulate them. Hope that at least HN will remain unpopular enough so that we will still be able to have real discussions here in the future ;)

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I hope that wink is a realization that sponsored content (in the form of "Show HN" and the linkbait submitted by heavily interested parties) has already arrived.

At least there is a tradition of stating your affiliations and monetary interests up front. But still, good point. Recent bitcoin debacle is a good example - with both parties accusing each other of staging a FUD-spreading campaign in social media and on discussion sites.

> I have recently found that I can't trust most of the things written on the internet anymore. Every piece of writing is suspect and that's incredibly tiring.

To be fair, magazines and newspapers have always had "sponsored content" or "native advertisement" (whatever you wanna call it) and we managed.

Yes, but suspecting that every article has an unstated source of influence other than author's own opinion is the whole new level of paranoia. Articles throwing lavish praise at some particular corporation are the easiest - just dismiss them. But when there is no evident source of influence, my mind races to build a mini-conspiracy theory - who is trying to tell me this and why? As I've said, tiring.

Yep, as they say: "The Suit is Back!" (http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

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