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How Product Hunt really works

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695 points brw12 | 4 comments | 15 Dec 15 19:32 UTC | HN request time: 0.732s | source
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birken ◴[15 Dec 15 21:14 UTC] No.10740521[source]▶
Hacker News is a long-running, open, inclusive startup community that is subsidized by a related business, doesn't sell anything, and has proven time and again to do things good for the entire startup community.

Product Hunt is a new, closed, exclusive startup community run by a for-profit company that will eventually have to start selling you something.

Not sure why people complain about PH so much... just don't use it. There already is a perfectly good community of startup people out there that has much more incentive to stay "pure" than a for-profit one. Sure, HN isn't perfect, but fundamentally it is always going to be better than any for-profit communities.

(And also this obligatory comment: If you want to build a successful company, stop wasting your time browsing startup communities and spend your time talking with users and building your product)

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argonaut ◴[15 Dec 15 23:14 UTC] No.10741179[source]▶
FWIW, HN is implicitly biased towards YC companies, because posts by YC founders show up in a different color to other YC founders, which is an implicit voting ring of sorts.

This may no longer be the case; it was the case a few years ago to my knowledge.

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1. mmastrac ◴[15 Dec 15 23:24 UTC] No.10741237[source]▶
I'm pretty sure that the only privileged positions YC holds on HN today are the top-left link and the job posts that are not eligible for votes or comments.
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2. jdp23 ◴[16 Dec 15 00:31 UTC] No.10741541[source]▶
And writing the algorithms. And setting policies. And employing the moderator. And ...

Whether this privileged position leads to different treatment for YC companies is a different question -- as Dan says, they try not to be biased and potentially even overcompensate. Still, the privileged position is certainly there.

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3. dang ◴[16 Dec 15 01:12 UTC] No.10741711[source]▶
You're exactly right—it's a privileged position, and a delicate one. Without the trust and the interest of the community, HN wouldn't be worth much, so those are the two things we care about most.
4. argonaut ◴[16 Dec 15 02:45 UTC] No.10742032[source]▶
The author handles show up in a different color to other YC founders. That's another benefit.