[GekkePrutser]

I understand, but they're also pushing many users away with this behaviour.

It's what I like about HN.. It feels like they don't even care how much users 'engage'. I bet they don't even run a report on it. They just let us do our thing here and not worry about it. As a user this is a much nicer experience.

[PakG1]

Easy for HN to do that. HN is not incentivized to make money. The people who run HN do not care if HN does not make any money. In fact, they have zero monetization strategies for HN.

[zozbot234]

HN has ads on its front page. Not many of them, and they are quite hard to spot at a glance (mixed in with the content, not clearly marked as such) but they're there.

[chipotle_coyote]

AFAIK, the only ads are the ones described in the FAQ:

> A regular "Who Is Hiring?" thread appears on the first weekday of each month (or Jan 2). Most job ads are welcome there. Only an account called whoishiring is allowed to submit the thread itself. This prevents a race to post it first.

> Another kind of job ad is reserved for YC-funded startups. These appear on the front page, but are not stories: they have no vote arrows, points, or comments. They begin part-way down and fall steadily. Only one is on the front page at a time.

I'm not sure either of those qualify as ads in the sense we're talking about Reddit ads -- the first one doesn't bring in any revenue to HN (or cost "advertisers" any money); the second one seems like it's a perk for "graduating" YC and it's unclear whether it's something HN makes revenue from, either.

[fauigerzigerk]

I've never seen an ad on HN. They must be really hard to spot.

[waterhouse]

There's currently one on the frontpage for GiveCampus, shown below a regular story:

  14. The Haunted House – Privacy on Google Street View (harpers.org)
      8 points by b0b10101 1 hour ago | flag | hide | 1 comment
  15. GiveCampus (YC S15) hiring Sr Engineers who care about education (lever.co)
      1 hour ago | hide

Distinctive features: no upvote button, no point value, no flag link, no comments.

[fauigerzigerk]

14. "The Haunted House" is not an ad as far as I can see. It does have an upvote button.

15. is a job posting by a YC company. Perhaps you could classify it as an ad, but I see it as a perk that YC grants its own companies.

[waterhouse]

Right, I included the Haunted House entry (a regular story) for contrast.

The job posting is certainly "sponsored content", a privileged post put there at the behest of a third party, which blends in fairly well with neighboring posts yet isn't subject to the normal rules. I don't know if money actually changes hands to put it there (maybe each YC company is granted a posting there, or maybe they have to pay for it), but in other respects it's straightforwardly an ad for a job.

All that said, I have no problem with it being there.

[krapp]

The only reason HN isn't incentivized to make money directly is that its owned by a company that makes money on it indirectly.

[thunderrabbit]

Your answer reminds me; we are focusing on Hacker News as if it's its own thing, but part of the answer is right in the URL. HN is a part of ycombinator, which presumably pays the bills.