[ceejayoz]

In some cases, it's probably to establish aged accounts that are more trusted by users and spam algorithms. There's a market for old Reddit accounts, for example.

[surgical_fire]

Interesting.

Incidentally, how much do they pay for a HN account that is a few years old and accumulated a few thousand Internet points?

Asking for a friend.

[sfjailbird]

They are very valuable. Just a few of them can put a link on the HN front page. Upvote a certain viewpoint. Or bury any post they want gone.

[duxup]

Yup, reddit is awash in established accounts that suddenly start spamming. Whole pools of them working to the same goal at times.

[jedberg]

I receive multiple offers a year to participate in spam rings with the 20 year old high-karma reddit account. I usually just ignore them or report them. I could be making so much money /s

So far it hasn't happed here, but we'll see!

[rcarmo]

Yep. Like I said elsewhere on the thread, some of them already have enough karma to downvote.