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Comment by fweespeech | Hacker News Reader

The reality is aspirational marketing works when you are building a personal brand.

I wouldn't really say Patio11 embellishes or lies, I'd say he employs standard marketing techniques.

I realize you may thing this as a "rationale" for why its okay but I don't think it is. Marketing and selective disclosure is a fact of life. If you don't read between the lines, it really is on you for most things in life regardless of the reality of the situation.

Its a large part of why I'm in favor of regulation. Many, many people get screwed precisely because they can't read between the lines.

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I think you're going a bit too far about criticising "standard marketing techniques". What will you do if you want to contract for others? Why is it not "Publish as much information about your research and skills as possible"? (this is the standard marketing technique here)

I'm not really sure what is wrong with this. It's not like he's just publishing infomercial with no experience. He's got lots of experience we see (BCC, conferences, published software, all the blogs) and don't see (contracting) and lots of exposure in programming community. Realistically, he's probably one of the reasons many people on HN know what A/B testing is. It's a huge personal brand... and what exactly is wrong with it?

I'm not even sure what kind of regulation would apply in this case.

> I'm not really sure what is wrong with this.

I didn't say it was wrong. You may want to read the comment I was responding to.

I did say it was naive to take everything someone else tells you at face value without reading between the lines.

I did read your comment. You said the quoted rationale is not ok. So what's wrong with it?

> I realize you may thing this as a "rationale" for why its okay but I don't think it is.

Also if you write that we should read between the lines as a comment on something, I'll will read between the lines that you've got some negative opinion here, but you didn't share it.

Its a large part of why I'm in favor of regulation. Many, many people get screwed precisely because they can't read between the lines.

Yes, that is a common reason for supporting regulations - a well-meaning disdain for the intelligence of others.

Yeah, about that, you realize that all those people suckered into ARM loans they couldn't afford during the housing crisis was precisely because they couldn't read between the lines?

>you realize that all those people suckered into ARM loans they couldn't afford during the housing crisis was precisely because they couldn't read between the lines?

Maybe, just maybe, there were a few who said, "I'm going to flip this house before the interest rates adjust, so who cares what it says between those lines?" or "I'll live in this house while I can afford it, and when I can't I'll mail in the keys and leave the bank hanging for a loan I agreed to pay back in good faith."

All the bad guys aren't on one side.

I never said they were. But requiring clear, obvious warnings on things is a large fraction of regulation and the relevant part to "helping people who can't read between the lines".

Regulation is rarely an outright ban, especially in this context.

Or he had somewhat passive success with some SEO/other tricks and excitedly shared them to a good feedback loop. Works as marketing but I doubt marketing was his first thought.

> Works as marketing but I doubt marketing was his first thought.

The fact anybody cares about this at all is a testament to Patrick's masterful manipulation of online audiences.

The fact you believe "I doubt marketing was his first thought" is why it works so well. You don't realize you're being manipulated into internalizing the personal brand of someone more clever than you.

Few years back I had a side project start making $20-30k/yr passive from about an hour's worth of effort, total. I don't talk about it (or wouldn't talk about it further) to market it or me, but just because it's a novel story that people find interesting. From the early days of talking about BCC, I recognised the same wonder in patio11.

...yeah. No offense, but that stuff doesn't "happen" organically like that except with lottery winner odds.

I've had to grow traffic for sites before. Generally, even if its good content, you have to put some effort into driving traffic to it. Which is marketing. At which point, you are doing it to market something. The first thought is marketing.

Not the SEO, the talking about BCC.

Yeah, its marketing.

I have had profitable side projects but I never talk about them on HN or other sites.

Self promotion is inherently about marketing and even at the start that is precisely what he did.

My response to this is already in another branch of this discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9602791

Explains how it wasn't necessarily his first thought. In the beginning, it was HN comments where the first thought is more sharing content you feel is relevant, or the gamification of karma.

I'm responding to you and at no point do I feel like I am marketing "prawn" or anything I do online. I'd use a relevant username for one thing!

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