The perceived need to cheat is inversely related to the value your product brings to customers with money and desire.
The more we hackers focus on the latter, the less we want to talk about the former.
The more we hackers focus on the latter, the less we want to talk about the former.
I thought we'd debunked that old chestnut enough times by now. Most of the most successful startups have used some techniques which later (or earlier!) got classified as "dark patterns", "cheating", or what have you. I have at least 2-3 articles on swombat.com that specifically cover the idea that in many contexts where the appearance of success is a precondition to success, you should "fake it till you make it".
Entrepreneurship is about finding and exploiting business opportunities. Finding loopholes in the world of promotion and marketing is an important part of that art.
Some people create valuable products, write valuable posts, but feel the need to cheat. Some others may write not-so-valuable posts, but they will not cheat.
Of course, the ideal HN scenario is for people to write great posts, not cheat and have those posts on the front page. Unfortunately, voting rings make that a bit more difficult than it should be.