The obscure social media app beloved by China's tech scene

Re:The obscure social media app beloved by China's tech scene by bxksnche on Friday May 17, 2024 @05:13AM (#40387935)

To me the No. 1 reason HN is successful is that it doesn’t have to monetise its users.

This leads to much stronger alignment of incentives between users and the owners of the platform.

That’s not to say it’s not valuable to YC. It provides them with very good marketing to a core demographic they are trying to market to.

Kinda like sports teams run by petro states.

For social media platforms it means that HN’s existence isn’t driven by the need to grow [1], leading to a focus on quality. Hackernews does this using the HN guidelines, which are rigorously enforced.

[1] insert graphic comparing HN growth vs other social media

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Re:The obscure social media app beloved by China's tech scene by vundercind on Friday May 17, 2024 @10:00AM (#40389992)

It does monetize them (us). It’s an advertising platform, just one with a very narrow set of clients (companies ycombinator invests in)

What it isn’t, is dependent on an ad marketplace. It’s more like a industry digest published by an investment firm active in that industry.

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Re:The obscure social media app beloved by China's tech scene by fragmede on Friday May 17, 2024 @10:17PM (#40396025)

depends on how you want to define ad because every new apple product is going to have a post up about it. apple doesn't pay for that placement but its totally an advertisement for the product.

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