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by lolinder 629 days ago
How does the team feel about selling Google reviews and Instagram followers? How do 84codes and Manas.Tech feel about being placed alongside these sketchy sponsors?

I get that money is hard to come by, but I hope you realize that you might be doing more than $1500/mo in damage to the project by accepting these ad placements.
1 comments
beta-ziliani 629 days ago
This is a problem we have with the current page layout. We agree that these need to be clearly marked as ad, instead of legitimate sponsors.

Quite frankly, this is something new to us (ads paying enough to be there), so we're still figuring out.

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lolinder 629 days ago
But you don't see a problem with accepting an ad placement that is legally and morally dubious? The FTC is moving to ban these outright, and their justification is 100% valid:

> Fake reviews not only waste people’s time and money, but also pollute the marketplace and divert business away from honest competitors.

Labeled as an ad or not, you may well lose sponsors over this who don't want to be associated with that kind of behavior, and you're certainly losing potential users and contributors here on HN. My perspective on Crystal has changed from positive (I always love new programming languages) to negative over the course of this conversation, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

This damage can't be measured as easily as money flowing in can, but it's very real and you shouldn't discount it. Some of us don't believe that receiving money for something is sufficient justification to do it.

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/08/...

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