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Comment by reidjs | Hacker News Reader

I don’t see the harm in the “influencers” asking. For some places it’s probably worth it to get the cheap promotion.

It certainly makes sense to try from the "influencer" side. The issue seems to be around the volume of requests and the extremely low bar to claim that you're an "influencer".

From the article: "The Jashita Hotel in Tulum has faced such an overwhelming number of inquiries from “influencers” over the past six months that the hotel has stopped working with them, said Abigail Villamonte, the front desk manager."

It's like giving your product away for free to a celebrity as a way of getting it seen in photos and such (can be a reasonable marketing effort for certain types of businesses), and then having a stream of random people asking for it for free too because people see them when they ride the subway or whatever.

I used to work at American Apparel, and people would try to get an "influencer discount" a few times per week.

I don't blame them for trying. Many of the "influencers" were women in college or their early 20s that just wanted to buy cute AA clothes, but could't really afford to pay 2-3x what stuff costs at H&M or Forever21, so they were hoping selfies could be used as a coupon to save money. I would totally do the same; worst that could happen is someone says "No" and my pride is a little hurt for a moment, but then everyone moves on.

The only really annoying influencers were the entitled ones who acted like they're Kylie Jenner because they have 1k followers (which are easy to fake in the beginning with free trial bots or follow4follow apps to cross the "1k" threshold quicker). Some of them would be straight up mean. Plus the regional manager would get mad after seeing too many discounts being applied in the daily closing report for items not on sale or promo. I think if someone brings up getting a discount for being an influencer and they get rejected, then they should just accept it and move on. The "Do you know who I am!", "Look at how many clothes I sell on Depop!", "You're gonna be sorry for not giving me what I want" customer is never a fun one to deal with. Then a few just flat out stole clothes in the dressing room then would leave the store. Working in retail was definitely not the best job, but it created a desensitization to dealing with shitty people.

I think it's just frustrating to business owners. Running one and maintaining profitability can be hard for small business owners. Profit margins are already really small in the service industry.

So imagine you run one of these establishments, and you're constantly bombarded with entitled kids with instagram accounts asking for free stuff. I'm not saying its a major issue, but I would be pretty ticked off myself if this happened.

From TFA...

> resorts in the Maldives were swamped with influencer inquiries

> has faced such an overwhelming number of inquiries from “influencers” over the past six months that the hotel has stopped working with them

It's like saying you don't see the harm in email spam.

Indeed -- Tesla lived for free for years in a New York hotel. The hotel owners felt that his mere presence made the entire building a nicer place.

I wonder how many of these "influencers" have as much to offer as Nikola Tesla. I imagine not... any.

Comparing wannabe instagram grifters, vagrants, freeloaders, and fraudsters to Tesla is disingenuous. Tesla gave more to the world than all these losers put together ever have.

The harm is not so much in the ask but in the existence of such 'influencers' to begin with. It's revolting in a regressive, quasi-aristocratic kind of way.

It really is, these people could also threaten to use their influence to smear places as well. So small business owners may feel the need to kowtow to the influencers' demands. Very much akin to: "Oh! You're the duke's nephew? Dinner is on the house, of course!"

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