[davidpayne11]

Please, as an advice to general HN posters, please avoid posting marco.org links here on HN, because his sole intention is to sell his readers out more than focusing on writing. That's a fairly grande accusation, but it's justified.

Do you know why is he writing about Google Reader now? Go to your HN homepage right now, as of writing this comment, the Google reader announcement has about 1700 upvotes. Ouch, that's a lot of views for someone to let go of. Hence, if someone writes something that compliments this announcement, common sense tells me that they would get more page views.

There's nothing wrong in having ads on your blog/website, people do it all the time. What's wrong is trying to create an impression to your readers that your sole intention is to write quality content, while you care just about pageviews. Please, realize that marco.org is no different from Techcrunch!

Marco isn't innocent, if you've been following him closely. Also, I think it would help if you take a look at this page where he just blatantly sells us, his readers like some piece of junk commodity. http://www.marco.org/sponsorship

[swombat]

Are you completely stupid or are you just trolling us?

On the off chance you're just stupid, here's some enlightenment. Marco Arment is a cofounder of hugely successful Tumblr and creator of Instapaper, both of which certainly make or made him more money than he'll ever make from ads on his blog, however popular. He's also created The Magazine, which probably makes a fair bit of cash already, and will be making more in the future. He has a solid reputation in the tech space, and it is stupid to argue that he's somehow spending his days trying to bait HN with empty crap articles.

marco.org is very different from TC, in that if marco.org had no ads, Marco would certainly still write to it, as it's his personal platform, whereas if TC had no ads, it would fold in a week.

[dingusmaster]

Pretty sure it's a troll. He knows he can get a response out of Arment (http://www.marco.org/2013/03/14/davidpayne) just as another commenter on the Verge did a while ago from a huge personal attack (http://www.marco.org/2012/05/10/crazy-comment)

[corresation]

Marco Arment is a cofounder of hugely successful Tumblr and creator of Instapaper, both of which certainly make or made him more money than he'll ever make from ads on his blog, however popular.

The GP post should be nuked from orbit, but the reasoning you put there is hilariously specious. If it is so irrelevant, then why are they there? Why does Arment stuff entries full of credibility-diminishing "sponsored by" text, or worse insidious Amazon affiliate links?

Every ounce of reality says that he cares very much about his blog income, your imaginings of his external wealth notwithstanding.

[swombat]

He can make something in the thousands of dollars a month of income from his blog. That's pretty good, and it probably pays for quite a few monthly expenses, so he'd be stupid not to put this one nonintrusive ad on there.

Not putting a small ad on there that pays thousands of dollars would just be silly.

As a comparison, swombat.com has no ads because the amount of money attached to it would simply be too small to bother (tens of dollars a month at the very most, if that much). If it was a few thousand, I'd put a small ad on there even if I had millions in the bank.

[ChrisClark]

Ok, so he responds to HN posts all the time. Everything he says here is a good idea. And I want all the reader developers to consider it. So I'm going to upvote it.

Just because he says what we want to hear doesn't make the content wrong. I want to hear it and I want others to hear it too.

If what he is recommending isn't perfect, the comments here can expand and fix it.

[timmins]

I've been under the impression that HN doesn't sit well with Marco. I've read it multiple times on multiple occasions.

Quickest example I could recall: https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/176437401156194305

[corresation]

either factually wrong or completely irrelevant

Coming from Marco Arment that is rich.

[ocean12]

Got a link to share with us?

[corresation]

It would be a boring diversion, but his most recent hysterics about Google and WebM are the height of obnoxious defensiveness: Google pays $100 million for a widely respected and legally clear video codec company, open sourcing the crown jewels for anyone's use. To Arment's jaded, bitter, anti-any-competitor-to-Apple perspective this is "a clear pattern: Google clearly (and often willfully) infringes on someone else’s IP, can’t believe that it’ll ever have any repercussions, and claims they’re doing it to be “open” or some bullshit. It betrays a culture at Google’s highest levels of arrogance, entitlement, and dishonesty."

This is a pattern of hilariously biased perspective that he demonstrates time and time again, while occasionally trying to pretend that he's even keeled.

Just incredible.

It is not terribly surprisingly that Arment shields himself from dissent, and tries to build a world where alternative opinions can only be wrong.

EDIT: Marco is funnelling his minions in here (because he totally doesn't read this place, am I right?), so expect moderation to reflect that.

[Semaphor]

Besides the style of what corresation wrote, it would be a really good idea to answer why you think he is completely off. Because to me, who doesn't know Marco Arment at all, he sounds kinda spot on. And he did indeed write what corresatiion quoted [1]. So in case he is completely nuts, just downvoting this makes it seem that Marco is indeed "funneling his minions in here" to the casual observer.

[1] http://www.marco.org/2013/03/09/google-webm-infringement

[saidajigumi]

At some level, that's exactly how every ad-funded site in the world works. Is your complaint simply that the process is more visible? Marco.org and a few other independent sites use advertising that basically follows the "buy a slot" model that's been with us for more than a century. Is there an argument here as to why you would single out this ad-supported source versus every other such submission? I'll observe that there's nothing in the HN guidelines on- or off- topic about ad-funded sources.

In this case, you don't seem to have a critique of the content, the only area that the HN guidelines discuss. AFAICT, the content submitted is 1) original and 2) apparently quite relevant to the HN readership given the level of voted interest in this and other submissions related to the Google Reader shutdown.

[greghinch]

Are you crying foul on a writer trying to make money for his writing? Do you cry foul on magazines, newspapers, etc. for selling ads? Ever notice how "the news" in general is about what's going on in the world currently?

[Wilya]

He's far from the only one. Most people with thousands of followers monetize them, one way or another. There's a ton of bloggers out there hungry for pageviews.

So what ? Why accuse him right now, out of the blue ? And what does that have to do with the post ?

[snowwrestler]

Twist: Marco actually posted this, so he could have an excuse to write another ad-revenue-generating post for HN.

http://www.marco.org/2013/03/14/davidpayne

[adeaver]

I saw 1 ad. 1. And he's not selling user information but ad space and sponsored link posts which doesn't flood his site.

What exactly are you protesting against?

[JEVLON]

I enjoy his writing, but I don't take his writing as gospel. As with anything anyone says, we should exercise some judgement on the validity and biases of their ideas.

In 2011 in Marco's podcast he stated that 7" tablet devices don't make any sense, but then in 2012 he had changed his mind when the iPad mini was approaching its announcement. I am not calling him a liar, but just pointing out that opinions change and... opinions are just opinions.

I share his concern that each new feed reading service will use a different sync API, and am happy others will be reading this blog post. Regardless of whether Marco has jumped on the popular story bandwagon or not so he can make a few advertising dollars, this post is of value to enough people to up-vote it.

[lnanek2]

So he's basically our slave and writes more content on whatever we like? Awesome. If he wasn't already getting paid, I'd say let's hire him.

[saw66]

I hate to be rude, but you haters are some amazing douchebags. I'm not a Marco fanboy, but he's a successful person who thinks a lot about the things he does, as evidenced by any listening to Build and Analyze and Accidental Tech Podcast. Do I always agree with him? No. Is he smarter than me, and has he accomplished more in terms of his career and technology? Yes, I'd say the evidence says so.

It's one thing to disagree with people, but to hate them and be a total jackass for no reason is just wasting your life on the internet. MANY web sites have sponsorship. MANY of them. Marco is no more of a sellout or in the business of selling you out than any of them.

What a tool.

[tomfakes]

The irony for me is that I had no idea Marco had ads on his site, because I get to read his blog content in Google Reader!

[Kylekramer]

You would still get ads there.

[tpz]

In the form of periodically-interspersed sponsor posts which are explicitly stated as being such and which are never mixed with actual content. As feed monetization goes, its about as above board as it can get.

Of course, being as above board as possible would still not be good enough for the anti-Marco brigade stomping around this pale imitation of what HN once was. I certainly wasn't here right from the beginning, so no hipster douchbaggery intended by any stretch, but I swear to those who have arrived more recently: You have no idea how good HN used to be compared to this. Sad, truly sad.

[Kylekramer]

What anti-Marco brigade? A heavily downvoted post and me pointing out that you would in fact get ads if you subscribed to his site via a feed reader? Dude has like half his posts hit the top here, HN loves him. A very, very tiny minority don't.

But yes, I like nostalgia too.

[SmileyKeith]

Nope.