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Comment by Abrownn | Hacker News Reader

This post is just an ad. It's a brand new Substack with literally only one article that's more than 50% ad text. All of the comments here are addressing overall HN sentiment or the title, not the article and the giant ad text which I would think would stick out to more people if they had actually read it??

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You’re not wrong that this has a lot of ad copy, but it’s a different kind of ad -- a paid sponsorship, personalised to the site rather than to individual users. It’s a more old-fashioned model, like magazine ads.

I think a lot of people saying “but ads are what let us get stuff for free!” would point to this kind of thing as an example of doing it right.

I would say this is an ad aimed at a professional audience. I read the science equivalent of these in Nature sometimes. Sure, they are biased and misleading. But it is usually clear enough who sponsored the piece and so you get a useful perspective of the sponsor on some topic.

It's jarring because I've never seen advertising on any of the dozen substacks I've visited before. This one has so many ads.

I couldn't stand magazines back in the day for the same reason. Frankly, magazines are worse in my mind as I've already actually paid several dollars to purchase it. You'd think that'd allow them to get away with less ads as a result but apparently not. TV is the same way - I'm already paying for cable, stop showing me MORE stuff! I cut the cord in 2011, I don't miss it and I'd rather that model of payment+more ads not make a comeback.

This is the kind of ad that makes me feel good about buying Apple products. Unlike the ads that give me creepy vibes from being tracked across the internet by Facebook.

You don't think that its important that there aren't any irritating banners, that it opens with the content, and that any advertising copy sits below the article itself? I had to go back and check because the thing you are complaining about literally did not interrupt my flow in any way.

Banner ads don't masquerade as content and aren't nearly as screen-covering as that on-average in my experience. The only way this is better is that there's no chance for malicious JS to be served from the ad (Forbes, cough cough)

The bigtechnology substack's first post was on May 16, 2020 and has around 70 posts.

Odd, only one is showing up for me, that one. Same issue on multiple browsers with extensions off.

Also, I note, you can’t opt out of tracking on the site either.

The irony of that jumps out at me.

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