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Comment by PhilWright | Hacker News Reader

Amazing to see people stumbling upon millions. Most techies are trying to come up with clever technical solutions to try and build an online business. Whilst elsewhere there are people making millions from reviewing mattresses. Or whatever the next accidental hot market will be.

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Review sites in any niche industry can be extremely popular. I am a guitarist, and there are a LOT of blogs and Youtube channel reviewing guitars, amps and pedals. Most are pretty boring, technical reviews which aren't all bad, but get a handful of views.

Then there are the channels that thrive on drama and conflict. One particular guitar reviewer is an older chap, with questionable playing skills and knowledge, but he excels in riling up companies, which in turn leads to more publicity and views for him.

He is well known for taking expensive electronic gear apart and saying things like "I can't believe they charge $2000 for this guitar effects processor when I know the motherboard and DSP chips on here only cost $200... etc.". When the company refutes these claims or tried to explain, he shuts them down with demands for payment to remove his negative reviews etc.

We cannot expect much more though - a whole generation of audience has been trained to seek out such drama and negative energy and latch on to it like a remora to a shark.

Yeah basically he is committing extortion and blackmail, pretty sad.

More accurately, he's accepting bribes to silence his freedom of speech. He's entirely in his right to have negative reviews as long as they're truthful.

That’s blackmail. Making a legal threat and making a legal money request combine into an illegal act.

What law says I can’t give you an incentive to stop badmouthing me?

According to this link, defamation - written (libelous) or verbal (derogatory) - is a civil matter and not a crime.

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/defamation-law-made-...

Since you are arguing the difference between bribery & extortion: "Extortion could occur between two businessmen and still be a criminal offense, whereas bribery is primarily focused on the bribing of Government employees or bribing by Government employees. But the most important difference is the difference between a threat to do harm in extortion and an offer to do good in bribery."

https://criminal.laws.com/bribery/bribery-versus-extortion

I wasn’t arguing bribery vs extortion. I was questioning whether defaming someone is an illegal act.

Since you’ve brought it up, is it extortion to offer up a negative opinion and then to offer to take down a negative opinion?

The public space is as much yours as mine to say what we will about whatever subject under the sun including each other.

E.g., “I believe zebnyc eats donkey meat for breakfast. I don’t think he should be allowed to do this.” Now, if you were applying for a PETA contract, this opinion of mine could hurt you financially. So if I offered to take down this opinion for money, what illegal act have I committed? My opinion of your eating habits is valuable to you because of your external circumstances namely your PETA contract.

Is this any different from this guy stating that he doesn’t understand why a piece of equipment should cost in the thousands when to make it should cost in the low hundreds. The company could have argued the actual cost teardown or said that they attach their QA and reputation to each piece of equipment sold so that boosts the price or given him money to shut him up. The chose the last option.

See this page[1] for a detailed explanation, which explains that under most extortion laws, the threatened act may be perfectly legal (like leaking photos of someone in a compromised position). It becomes illegal if the threatened act would "harm" the victim and you demand money in exchange for not doing it. (Legally, harm has a very broad scope, and can include loss of reputation.)

[edit] Note that what this YTer is doing would probably not be extortion under California law as long as his claims are truthful, as he has already posted the videos, and is only demanding money to take them down.

[1] https://www.shouselaw.com/extortion.html

Agree (regarding your edit.)

The guy posted an opinion. The company weighed the costs of refuting his opinion or paying him to shut up. I don’t think this is blackmail or extortion. How an opinion can be construed as defamatory I fail to see.

What's the legal threat, if his estimates of the BOM are truthful?

That's it. You can legally threaten to tell the truth, and you can legally ask for money. But combining those two acts is what's illegal.

Note that I may be wrong about this case being blackmail, since the youtube videos are already posted (thanks to gamblor956 for pointing this out). Whereas "Pay me money or I will make a bad youtube video about you" would be blackmail.

Funnily enough, I'm a guitar player too and I know exactly who/what you are talking about... I guess the pool is smaller than I have always assumed. :)

> Whilst elsewhere there are people making millions from reviewing mattresses

True, but from what I read, this guy had SEO experience and ranked #1 for "Casper Mattress Review" for many years. In other words he was clever at marketing his site which was stuffed with affiliate links along with 1 on 1 agreements with some mattress companies.

Most techies who are coming up with "clever technical solutions" either don't validate a need for their offering, or really suck (add me to this list) at marketing their solutions / online businesses.

I couldn't agree more.

Given how much malicious behaviour is often involved in SEO and strong marketing, I'd say a lot of techies try to come up with "clever technical solutions" in order to try and avoid unethical business practices.

True, but there's a survivor bias there - for every guy who stumbles into millions there's 100 writing content that gets ignored and making nothing.

Id say it's huge. More like a tens or hundred of thousands at one point. Everyone and there mother was blogging. Now it's just sexy insta pics holding brand name merchandise with hash tags mixed into 20 others as the advertising notice.

A friend of mine made a fair bit of money off of a website that listed "free stuff" promotions around the web. But it was manually-maintained and so quickly died.

... BUT...

He really only started making ad revenue on the site once he stopped maintaining it! People would find his site, then would realize the content was old, but would click on an up-to-date ad instead.

Accidental genius. :)

Sounds like seo took hold on its own over time. It accumulated links and ranking naturally.

I'd say affiliate marketing is more of a modern "lemonade stand" business, just like youtube/twitch videos, game programming, and app development. There's an extremely low barrier to entry and it gives you an ideal place to hone business skills, but odds are you won't make enough to cover the cost of hosting a website.

My impression is that, if you find a niche, stick with it, and do at least nominal marketing, you'll make a few bucks. But emphasis on few. For most people, it's more akin to a nice hobby than a real business.

I don't find it that amazing having worked at large companies and watched middle to upper management do the same.

I try not to play the envy game lest I just self loathe. Luck has always existed. Also, tales like these help keep me humble and I just assume there is a cognitive dissonance and their talents are valuable even if I can't see how.

> I just assume there is a cognitive dissonance and their talents are valuable even if I can't see how.

I think that's the right attitude. Even if you look down upon SEO, there's no denying that the guy learned a skill that took time and effort, plus took some risks that it wouldn't work out.

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