[rajivayyangar]

(I'm the CEO of Product Hunt) This isn't far off the mark, but I do want to push back on two things.

One: "VC backed companies have the funds to be able to boost their launch on PH to guarantee their launch will be in the top 5." - absolutely not. We do not tolerate paying for votes or other means of artificially boosting score.

Two: "its going to be a lot harder for you, the side hustler, the soloprenuer, the full time bootstrapper" - It's true that the bar is higher, but it's because The Market is more competitive. It was a personal goal of mine when I stepped in a year ago to make Product Hunt into a place where you can launch your side projects and they can rise to the top. To do that, we need to reduce the noise a bit and ensure that community and organic signal are balanced. This is difficult, but we're working on it. For example, Chris Van Pelt's side project OpenUI (open source v0) was #2 of the day a little while ago - hunted by a friend without any launch prep.

Product Hunt changed my life - I launched a side project that got tons of traction and it caused me and my friends to jump in full-time and start a company. I want to make Product Hunt an even stronger force for changing lives than it's been in the past, but that requires evolving the platform for the market in 2024.

[elawler24]

Thank you for trying to take on this problem, it’s really bad though. I did a PH launch this summer resulting in a few hundred unique website views. Comments besides people I already knew were either bots or promotional. Lots of bounty hunters.

Compare that to our HN post requiring no additional lift, which resulted in ~10k unique visitors, no bots, and great critical feedback we couldn’t get anywhere else.

I do want an authentic PH! But it feels like a vanity landing page in its current state.

[throwawayha]

The next version of PH is likely being built now and be the next curve of growth the existing one hasn't done yet.

[AndrewKemendo]

PH isn’t, and (hopefully) won’t ever have the gravity of a HN front page

I thought PH was great when they came out and Ryan was a super nice guy - gave my startup a small boost when PH just came out

Reality is there was never a business there in any real way that was sustainable and not subject to enshittification, so I’m not sure what’s surprising

[dbreunig]

Same exact experience. Was on the top of HN for a chunk of the day, saw a couple votes. Scanning the results above, it’s very clear there’s brigading, bots, and pay. Just look at the daily distribution.

[XCSme]

Thanks for the comment.

> We do not tolerate paying for votes or other means of artificially boosting score.

Let's be honest, posting a PH and getting top 5 has NOTHING to do with the product. It's all bots and politics.

As soon as I posted on PH, I kept getting spammed (via email, Twitter) of people offering to sell upvotes and guaranteed top spots.

My PH comment section started getting filled with bots (with almost identical comments) and also with people who were also launching and just wanted to have their name visible with the "LAUNCHING SOON" badge.

I reported the bot comments immediately, but I got no response: https://snipboard.io/fDzVXU.jpg

Overall my launch on PH went ok, I got some traffic, but almost all upvotes were from the communities I'm involved in, where I promoted my launch.

To get first, you simply need to have the largest community. The product doesn't really matter. It should be "InfluenceHunt" not "ProductHunt".

[swyx]

> We do not tolerate paying for votes or other means of artificially boosting score.

i have been recipient of many many many many many many DMs from startups asking for upvotes at 12.01am PT. this erased whatever respect i had left for PH. when you make this pointless is when i will pay attention to it again.

[andrewstuart]

As suggested in my comment below it should accumulate the launch posts for 24 hours then publish all in a big randomized list. Makes no sense that the time you post is a factor in the process.

[bastawhiz]

What percentage of "featured" products each day are indie side projects?

[padseeker]

I appreciate your comment, and the honesty.

This post is certainly being critical, but I'm also not here to bring the hammer down. I am saying that it has grown very popular, and that makes it harder to get noticed. I know more than a few people have publicly complained on twitter about how their startup listing has been removed or bumped.

I also know there are a lot of scammers out there that PH has to battle against, trying to game the system. I know the people at G2.com when they started and were giving away free ipads for the top people with the most software reviews in a month, and someone tried to jump ahead by downvoting all the reviews of the people ahead of them in a month.

Clearly though expectations have changed. I'm certainly bummed for the 60% of the staff who were laid off. You can't just share your startup without some serious work beforehand or else you risk blowing your shot at 15 minutes of startup internet fame.

My point is not that PH is dying or not, but the game has changed and it has hurt makers who do this for the hope of making a full time living, and we're being crowded out by VC funded startups and previous PH launchers who have had past success (i.e. Tallyforms) that are "relaunching" and sucking up the little amount of attention available on PH. It's frustrating.

[throwawayha]

What does top 5 convey anyways? Temporary Signal? Status? Badge?

Likely not a ton of signups or paid users.

[throwawayha]

Becoming a platform for experts vs beginners is a key consideration.

[newbie578]

How do you intend to handle the comments section? Currently, most of the comments are either blatantly AI generated or just some linkedin congratulatory feedback.

Most people value critical feedback and interesting discussions, that is the main reason why all of us visit HN every day.