[abhinav22]

It’s a fine line and I apologize if I was being harsh.

I’m not speaking for the original author, but from my own experience, getting to the front page of HN is very difficult, and I’ve noticed a fair few people (not blaming you) who have been advertising their own products on somebody else’s post.

It’s sort of like gaming the system. It’s not fair to the original author since the conversation can get sidetracked from his project to the project being linked.

It’s like jumping the queue. Actually I am not blameless here, I inadvertently did the same until I realized what I was doing was wrong —- it’s not something I think comes readily to the mind of the normal reader, but for any of those looking to promote it becomes obvious.

Again it’s a fine line. It’s an issue with HN having a large audience, no ads and a relatively cheap (well basically free) way to advertise ones work. Same thing happens with reddit; and now I have heard that some of moderators there are taking kickbacks by allowing / disallowing certain posts.

[kickscondor]

Ok you’ve convinced me - thank you for taking the time to explain in detail! At least on Show HN posts, I now see that this is rude. Apologies to the original author and thank you for the helpful tone.