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by 1vuio0pswjnm7 1388 days ago
IMO, we need to regulate online advertising. By allowing advertisers to fund websites and apps, we allow them to be used as platforms for mass hype and dissemination of "junk" (bait).

The "Twitter prof" is the academic who has learnt to master the advertiser-funded hype machine.

The internet should be an advertising-free internetwork as it once was.

Everyone reading this comment and enjoying this forum is using a non-commercial website. There is no advertiser funding.

When we fail regulate so-called "tech" companies, we watch the value of the internetwork continually degraded to nothing more than a means to advertise and disseminate "junk".

3 comments

This is a commercial website and the advertiser funding it is called Y Combinator. It advertises its own VC business and posts launch ads / job ads for its funded companies here.

The rise of the Twitter Prof has nothing to do with Twitter’s funding model.

"Advertiser-funded" as used here means the income from advertising is necessary for the continued existence of the website.

Companies advertising open position on HN do not pay for the ads. HN does not rely on imcome from ads to run the website.

(Now, one could argue that HN is owned by YC, YC makes money from "tech" companies and "tech" companies generally use online ads or ad services as their "business model". Fair enough. In response, I would point out that HN does not need surveillance, data collection or ads in order to survive. HN's "content" comes from from submitters and commenters. These individuals are unpaid. Unlike sites run by "tech" companies, the users generating the "content" are not paid from online advertising revenue.)

> Everyone reading this comment and enjoying this forum is using a non-commercial website. There is no advertiser funding.

HN has advertisements and is part of a .com (Ycombinator).