Hacker News Reader

Comment by GordonS | Hacker News Reader

> There are no advertisements

But some of the links are affiliate links. I don't have a problem with this, but if you're going to make a big deal about not having ads or sponsorship, then I think you should have mentioned this too.

View on HN

In the FAQ it does clearly mention that affiliate links are used.

I personally, don't have any issues with affiliate links so long as it takes me where I expected to go without a bunch of redirects through various trackers. Basically if I can follow it w/ an ad blocker on we're okay in my book.

And do the gentleman's thing of indicating affiliate links by appending a * or other symbol.

Transparency is good, even if the laws in your part of the world don't require it.

I think it's good enough that they recommended a number of options without an affiliate program. Intentions pass my bar of nobleness.

I think him picking up affiliate links and not polluting site with ads is good balance. It doesn't change anything for you as a visitor.

There is nothing wrong with making money, it is wrong when I get video playing when I click on a link at HN.

Thank you, finally someone with a bit of compassion, instead of hate because "there are affiliation links on the website, so he was obviously paid". That was exactly my idea: no ads, because ads sucks and if a service has an affiliation link, why not use it? For some websites like DigitalOcean, actually using the affiliation link gives you free credits when you register, while without the affiliation link, you don't get anything. I thought that mentioning the affiliation links in the main section of the FAQ page would be enough, but maybe that's not enough. That's something I should fix soon.

I have added information on top of the main page about the affiliation links, I hope that will be clear enough for most people :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com