You're underestimating the appeal of a "rant against Google". That's all that Occam needs in this case. I looked at the votes and they seem organic to me.

I'm afraid your comment breaks the HN guideline against insinuation of astroturfing/shilling/etc. without evidence. It's extremely common (well over 99% of these cases) for people to see something they find incongruent, massively overinterpret it, and jump into the internet to accuse others. We don't allow that here, because it poisons discussion and community. That doesn't mean real astroturfing doesn't exist (I blasted someone for it yesterday [1]). It means that we have to have something objective to go on—and if you have that, you should be letting us know at [email protected] so we can investigate.

Plenty of past explanation at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... for anyone who wants it. Here's me saying the same thing 5 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9986042.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23619453, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23619595

Dang, I've just explained my reasoning in more detail below, in response to a comment earlier than yours.

To be very clear, my comment was intended to be complimentary, not negative. I stated it was impressive. The author's opinion about Google is totally valid and widely shared -- and that's what makes the article such a clever vehicle in which to insert a call to action on behalf of Hey. <-- no direct evidence, just my opinion, of course.

(author here) i promise this is not an ad for Hey haha, have no affiliation with basecamp and wish i was that good at content marketing.

I am extremely doubtful.

It's kind of fishy this is the only comment OP responded to. And OP's other most recent comment was on a basecamp thread

You really don’t know DHH or BaseCamp. I can guarantee you that he has enough of a reach and platform not to engage in shady guerrilla marketing

The fact that Hey can on day one offer so much over a Gmail experience which hasn’t improved since the Bush administration is less an ad than underscoring how bad Google’s management are.

If mentioning it in a one-liner is a stealth ad, I assume this was also an ad for Notion, Zoom, Twitch, Apple, Instagram, and TikTok.

Only one of these services is brand new and just starting to build mindshare. Only one has no free tier. Only one currently has few enough users that securing a highly desirable username is still wide open: "My new email is [email protected]. I love it so far."

Excising "no free tier" (because we damn well know "free" products ain't free either - that's not an indicator of marketing), your argument boils down to "one of those services is new, therefore, content marketing."

"All internet discussions of new products are content marketing" seems way overboard for me.

No, that's not correct, it's far more specific. This article advertises the fact that Hey (which is asking you to pay $99 for a service most people currently get for free) has one very significant benefit, a short email address, which might be gone if you don't take immediate action. And the author does this ingeniously, by offering social proof after bonding via attacking a common enemy. As I said earlier, I'm impressed.

There are more Apple products listed. Maybe it’s a push to get beta OS users?

Everyone knows Apple, I have never heard about HEY.

The article doesn't really say anything, so I can see how it being at the top would be suspicious.

The article deservedly bashes Google in a way that many here agree with, and praises a number of services that many here at least somewhat agree with.

Validating people's spleen is generally a good way to get to the top of the fp.

There's no urgency in switching to DDG or Safari or anything Apple. There definitely IS urgency to sign up for Hey if you want an email address as simple as "[email protected]", instead of "[email protected]"

I have a really minimal/desirable gmail address and it's been only annoying. I constantly get emails from people by accident. I made my Hey address longer to avoid this.

First world email problems.