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A comment on Going back two years on Hacker News is like entering another, better universe. Parent comment

Re:Going back two years on Hacker News is like entering anot... by vhiremath4 on Monday November 09, 2026 @01:48PM (#50429779)
This has also perplexed me (advertising-to-bot-relationship), but I'm guessing the cost of combating these bots is going up (as complexity goes up and token cost goes down - whether subsidized or not).

I hate the idea that the future is only gated invite-only groups though. At the very least, some tag of "BOT" and then the ability to hide all bot content (unless it's highly upvoted by humans) would be great.

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Re:Going back two years on Hacker News is like entering anot... by ungovernableCat on Monday November 09, 2026 @02:11PM (#50430159)
Any attempt to seriously combat bots would most likely impact real user engagement numbers so it is indeed a tricky business problem to solve.

But I can't see the Reddit comment change as anything other than a cynical "astroturfing as a service" to advertisers. Doesn't seem to be working out for them though given their stock performance this year.

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