[renegat0x0]

Reminds me of "Website obesity crisis"

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYpl0QVCr6U

- https://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm

Some say that you should not use ad blocker, because that kills ad revenue, but I did not forced anybody to rely with their lives on ad revenue. Many of things were 'free' because we were all just using ad blocks, and then it all became commodified, simplified, so simpletons without ad blocks became a thing. Now they shame people for using ad blocks, even though it stops spreading malware and viruses.

I plan to use ad block, and use as many extensions that protect me. If there is some form of goods, be it streaming movies, audio, books I will happily pay for it. I will not accept a web with ads. I prefer touch grass. There is a clear line for me.

Also there is no line ad publisher will not cross. The goal posts are shifted, so you will never satisfy shareholder greed. The only pushback is trough ads and probably sometimes piracy. Not that I advocate it, but in reality if companies push too hard, there are consequences.

[georgeecollins]

It kills programmatic advertising, not sponsorships or subscriptions. I always subscribe to the four or five sites I use most and use a blocker. If HN had a subscription tier I would pay it to support them.

[VorpalWay]

HN doesn't need your money, it is run by YCombinator, a venture capital firm. As far as I can determine HN is a way to raise brand awareness for them. Sure, there are probably some people passionate about the concept at the company, but it wouldn't stick around if it they didn't also determine that it has more value to them than the operating costs of the site.

[genthree]

The closest thing I can see to direct monetization of HN is that YC uses it as a captive advertising platform.

They don't serve 3rd party ads, but they use it as a job board (with closed comments on those posts, LOL) for their companies, and to announce product launches and such. All that stuff gets boosted, nobody's organically up-voting a comments-disabled job post from some mediocre startup.

[EDIT] The less-direct part, yes, is stuff like brand awareness and community goodwill.

[AlienRobot]

The interesting thing about this strategy is that there are many people on this very website who have no idea what YCombinator is and just call this website "Hacker News."

[VorpalWay]

Most people (me included) are not really in the target audience for YC. I have no interest in starting a company, and even if I did I wouldn't want to do so in North America.

You also see some posts on here about some YC founded company or other with open positions, which is a wider audience (so that helps the equation I guess).

My guess is that these two target audiences together is enough for them. It is not like HN is a heavy site, nor does it change much over the years. So with smart coding (i.e. a compiled language) and hosting my guess is that moderation time is the bulk of the actual operating costs.

[genthree]

I used to deliberately not block ads on sites that worked directly with advertisers and didn't use big spying malware- and scam-filled ad networks, and only served (more or less) static, non-animated and non-pop-up ads. I also didn't block the early "see? We're doing not-evil advertising!" well-marked text-only Google ads (remember those?)

None of those are really a thing any more, but if those were the only kinds of ads around, I might not bother with an ad blocker at all.

Except Google ads or anything else from a big multi-site ad network. That's all spying crap, I'm never going back to allowing those through, no matter how unobtrusive.