> Patrick has almost direct control over YC and HN, you'll notice that every single Stripe post automatically has pc as the first comment, regardless of anything else. Everything negative gets buried.
This sounds like such BS. They are just very reactive around PR, and Stripe while it might be hated internally (based on what you say), it is loved by external developers, so of course developers on HN will tend to have a positive opinion of anything related to it and vote accordingly. And they are quite a lot.
I almost downvoted you for going with the conspiracy theory route, but I like the irony of this post being on the top 5 on the front page and your comment being the top comment of that post, while complaining about him having "almost direct control" of HN and the press.
Stripe is a YC company. If Stripe becomes a shit show, YC may lose money. How is it a conspiracy theory to suggest that both YC and Stripe might want to exert some control over bad PR?
Let's not forget that HN's primary function is to attract people with ideas for YC to turn into companies whose equity generates money for YC. And we're not talking chump change like a couple million. More like billions. What's a little push back on negative comments to save a couple billion dollars?
> Let's not forget that HN's primary function is to attract people with ideas for YC to turn into companies whose equity generates money for YC
I don't know about primary function but it's one of them, let's say. The interesting thing is that this has exactly the opposite consequence to what you say. Doing things to jeopardize the good faith of the community would not only be wrong, it would be catastrophically stupid. Therefore, not only do we not to do it, we place the highest priority on not doing it. That follows straightforwardly from the mixture of your premise with raw self-interest, so I'm not claiming anything hard to accept. Well, I guess I'm claiming we're not catastrophically stupid; maybe some find that hard to accept.
I genuinely don't understand what you're trying to say. On the one hand it sounds like you're suggesting that I'm suggesting that YC making money off of HN might jeopardize some good faith. Why would it? What good faith are we talking about? YC is a business, and HN is a part of that business. I don't think that's a controversial statement...? If it is a community, it's the community YC owns and operates. The website's URL is a subdomain of YC, it's run and paid for by YC... even if HN existed for some altruistic purpose, if you asked YC if they would be happy to sever it from YC and put it completely in the hands of the community, I think we can safely assume the answer. And founders defend their companies and investments here, that shouldn't be a controversial statement either. Why wouldn't they?
This sounds like such BS. They are just very reactive around PR, and Stripe while it might be hated internally (based on what you say), it is loved by external developers, so of course developers on HN will tend to have a positive opinion of anything related to it and vote accordingly. And they are quite a lot.
I almost downvoted you for going with the conspiracy theory route, but I like the irony of this post being on the top 5 on the front page and your comment being the top comment of that post, while complaining about him having "almost direct control" of HN and the press.