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Comment by oldjokes | Hacker News Reader

No you are totally right, I'm sort of aware of their power. I'm just pointing out how obnoxious it is that we just stratified online websites into the elites and the commoners and invented terms for them to make people feel as special as when they fly first class. This is a new thing that happened all of a sudden in the past few years.

It's an ugly trend taking over everything. Stratify all humans, treat the elites differently. Forget about net neutrality, we can do this within websites, within APIs, and so now we do.

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I believe it is more of a 'use case' of the platform. Personally, I abhor and avoid anyone who sells paid advertising slots within their 'natural' photos, but I get that there are some people who will deliberately do this for $$$, and that there are product manufacturers who will pay people with an audience to do this.

I tend to follow niche manufacturers (of guitars or other handmade instruments) directly because I am interested in their 'behind the scenes' photographic essays. No need for me to see them draped over someone who has no idea about the product but will happily drape them over themselves at some ubiquitous beach sunset shot.

I don't think it is a 'class' thing as much as it is a 'positioning' thing.

> Personally, I abhor and avoid anyone who sells paid advertising slots within their 'natural' photos ...

From HN's FAQ:

> Another kind of job ad is reserved for YC-funded startups. These appear on the front page, but are not stories: they have no vote arrows, points, or comments.

(I don't _like_ it, but it's kinda part of choosing to use someone else's free service and the community it builds. They get to choose the rules, including who gets to monetise that community and how...)

Those ads aren't natural photos, or any other kind of photos.

Perhaps it's just the Uberization of celebrity?

Anybody can download an app and do celebrity (read "taxi driver") stuff, and cash in on the gig-economy celebrity market...

I wonder how long until we see a court case claiming "influencers"should be given employee benefits by Facebook???

If you see all influencers as "elite" then that's your personal perception. They're just different types of users. To me, the influencer with 50 followers is less elite than the casual user who has thousands of followers just by sharing photos intended for friends and family.

Don't knock flying first class. There's nothing wrong with getting to a point where you value less torture in the air more than the amount of money it costs. This isn't a class warfare issue.

I think airline cabins are absolutely the best example of a class warfare issue, especially since so many other industries are trying to copy the cabin stratification model.

If that's not a good example of different classes rubbing up against eachother and getting angry about it then nothing else on the planet is, either.

You know that coach used to be better than first class is now, right? This idea that the back of the plane is bad and horrible suffering is a new invention, a new construct of the airlines that everyone just bought into all at once.

It's just a job like anything else. Since forever word of mouth advertising was the most valuable and this is just a natural evolution of it since people spend a lot of time on social media.

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