[giles_goat_boy]

Your logic's terrible.

_this community means nothing to you other than being a great place to advertise._

That conflates a community with a site, and attention-seeking with profit-seeking.

_before long the front page is nothing but posts about balls_

How long is before long? I actually think that would take a while, although I'd certainly be impressed if it happened overnight.

[Psyonic]

Obviously "nothing but posts about balls" was an exaggeration, but I don't think it's an impossible scenario. When digg first started, it wasn't all that different from HN, and reddit was very similar. Today digg has the 12 lost photos of Christie Brinkley on the front page. No, the change won't take place over night, but it has happened other places, and I have no reason to doubt it could happen here.

As for conflating a community with a site, I fail to see the problem. This site does have a community, and I'd hate to see that community change dramatically. I suppose the community could just meet somewhere else if this site goes down the drain, but I'd much rather avoid an exodus if possible.

And I'm not conflating attention-seeking with profit-seeking, actually. You just presented an offer to all of HN (and the entire internet, really) that you'll get their post to the front page for the right dollar amount. Seems pretty profit-seeking to me. Were you kidding? Trying to get a rise out of us? Maybe, I don't know. But even if it was a joke, I didn't find it particularly funny, because that behavior has ruined sites before.