HN has ads-that-look-like-posts too. They're mostly job postings for Y Combinator startups—a perk of that incubator being getting privileged positions on HN's front page.
I filter them with uBlock.
I filter them with uBlock.
There’s an element of luck, but also the names are part of the culture from the time they’re created. Multiple people often come up with very similar names for different things just because of what’s going in the world around them.
(Also the fact that YC runs HN isn't exactly hidden - the first hint is right there in the URL)
I think it would be something completely different if YC suddenly showed promoted posts from unrelated "partners" or just opened this up as an advertising opportunity to the general public.
All of the writing and discussion that exists on HN, which isn't a YC ad, is a "halo" to attract and retain readers to this forum (and see the YC logos and YC ads). That's their primary incentive: attract users, attract a specific culture of users. It's an incentive aligned with quality and pleasantness for us. The daily forum experience isn't the revenue source; to monetize that, YC would risk losing more (on their YC-halo boosting side) than they could expect to gain (from McDonald's ads, or whatever).
This is the diametric opposite of how most social media platforms think about users, and their business models around them. The Reddit IPO is a case study: they've willingly chased away countless millions of users with an abrasive, horrible forum experience, because they calculate they can extract more revenue from those that remain. Where HN is a "narrow, tall" revenue source surrounded by free stuff, Reddit is "wide and short": everyone and everything is the product.
Tells me that VCs are afraid of actual criticism, and 'no comment ad-posts' are their version of a safe space.... for critiques.
Right, that's the basis of my uBlock rule. :)
news.ycombinator.com##:xpath(//td[contains(@class,"subtext")]):not(:has-text(/\b(comment|comments|discuss)\b/i)):xpath(.. | ../following-sibling::tr[1] | ../preceding-sibling::tr[1]):style(display: none)