[73kl4453dz]

I guess i am orthogonal to this article because:

(A) i don't visit sites that have "Followers"

which i can probably afford to do because:

(B) unlike writing or waitservice, where one's market is huge numbers of people who each are only willing to pay a little, my skills interest few, but those few are willing to pay a lot.

[ryukoposting]

> my skills interest few, but those few are willing to pay a lot.

We share this privilege. My wife doesn't, though, and she and I have fundamentally different interactions with social media.

For her, it's a necessary evil to some extent - the nature of her profession demands that she's tuned into hot trends. That's a visible connection between her profession and her social media relationships. The invisible connections are much harder to identify, and you bring up an interesting point. I can't conceive of a company looking up your instagram account just to see how many followers you have, but maybe that's a thing. I wouldn't know.

[wpietri]

This is an odd thing to say on a site that depends so heavily on the upvote.

[d0gsg0w00f]

It only depends heavily on the up vote if you depend on the up vote. Sometimes it's nice just to formulate thoughts in writing. If others see it, great. If not, no big deal.

[wpietri]

Because upvotes control visibility, you are still describing a reward function that depends on the upvote.

[s1artibartfast]

I think they explicitly said the opposite. That the writing is their reward, and comments are always visible to the author. Visibility to other humans is incidental, or at least a secondary concern.

[wpietri]

They explicitly said, "If others see it, great. If not, no big deal."

So I agree they get some reward from the writing. (Like all writers do, and like we can all do just as well with a journal.) But the part I just quoted is clearly part of the reward function, and just as clearly the total reward increases with others seeing it. Which on HN is controlled by upvotes.

[s1artibartfast]

They also said "Sometimes it's nice just to formulate thoughts in writing". "Just" implies sufficient reward. Visibility is a part of the reward function, but it is not dependent on it.