[lucb1e]

> a clone of HN I've been working on that adds subscriptions and ad slot bidding

Wut, what's the purpose of that? Is this just a toy learning project? Would it be to make money off of people who don't know that an ad-free version of HN exists at news.ycombinator.com? Will you try to sell it to Ycombinator?

[ceroxylon]

I am hoping they are developing it as a satirical art project, otherwise... yikes; needing a credit card and an ad blocker to use HN would be very depressing and is counter to everything I enjoy about this forum.

[namanyayg]

A "clone" usually doesn't mean that they'll copy the content, but the idea, like Ola is a clone of Uber.

(Though they probably should've said a link aggregator instead of HN clone.)

[all2]

> (Though they probably should've said a link aggregator instead of HN clone.)

That's fair. It is a feature-to-feature clone, though.

[all2]

Mostly just learning, to be honest. I'm not trying to replace HN, I'm just fiddling around and seeing what I can do and what I can't.

My long term purpose is to provide the source code for communities/creators that want something simple to set up, and specifically allow creators to gate content behind a paywall. I'm sure stuff like that exists, but I hope what I build will be at least somewhat use-able.