[kibwen]

What makes you think I'm at all happy with the advertising here? As I said: advertising is a blight. In the meantime, I'm happy to exploit the false generosity of advertisers to denounce their practices on their own platforms. I'm unclear why you thought this was a counterargument?

[paulcole]

You may say you’re unhappy with it, but your actions say you’ve been contributing heavily here for 11 years. You support something that you think is a blight because you don’t think this is a blight.

Just like every HN commenter who thinks they hate ads, the truth is they hate the ads they hate and (at best) pretend the other ads aren’t ads.

Also I really like ads and am quite stupid so that might explain why I thought my comment was a good one.

[serf]

This is a ridiculous argument.

One can enjoy a single aspect of something without that implying total agreement.

I hate advertisement in nearly every aspect, I hate 'SV culture' in nearly every aspect -- but I can acknowledge that the collision of those two themes created a community that I enjoy, and has facilitated conversation that is generally on a more interesting level than the majority of communities out there on the internet that I could be spending time at otherwise.

>You support something that you think is a blight because you don’t think this is a blight.

I don't/can't/won't fall for the idea that 'HN=advertisement'; it's simply not true. HN has become something that is greater than the sum of its' parts, to ignore the other qualities that drive people to participate here would be disingenuous.

[paulcole]

> I don't/can't/won't fall for the idea that 'HN=advertisement'; it's simply not true

This is how you know HN is an absolutely fantastic ad. People who “hate” ads will fall all over themselves to explain why this ad isn’t an ad. “You see it’s different because reasons. I would never like an ad.”

I do believe the other reasons people engage here are real. But the fundamental underlying reason this place exists is for marketing and advertising for a VC firm.

[kibwen]

> the truth is

You appear to be quite confident in believing that this is the truth. I don't support HN, in fact I frequently denounce it (though I will say that dang is one of the better moderators I've seen). The reason to participate here despite that is because sacrificing power for the sake of principles is a losing strategy, despite what idealists would prefer to believe. You can't affect the world by running off and being a hermit in the woods; you must go to where the people are.

[HWR_14]

> they hate the ads they hate and (at best) pretend the other ads aren’t ads.

Alternatively, you could have an ad-blocking browser and not see the ads at all.