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How Product Hunt really works

(medium.com)
695 points brw12 | 2 comments | 15 Dec 15 19:32 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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phantom_oracle ◴[15 Dec 15 21:43 UTC] No.10740690[source]▶
Nothing can hurt a well-meaning first-time founder of some useful side-project business then to learn that a non-entity like Product Hunt is a rigged game where the inner circle are simply gaming the system for their friends and people whom they benefit from and will benefit.

From "top 3% of coders" to "your product will get 1st spot if you scratch our back with a small slice of the pie or counter-promote our product with yours" to "we will only invest in you if you get referred through an acquittance of ours", the game surely does feel more rigged each day.

The upper echelons of tech sure does share more similarities with high-finance then they would like to admit...

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Bjartr ◴[15 Dec 15 21:53 UTC] No.10740756[source]▶
Does it feel more rigged because it is becoming more rigged or because the level of rigging that already exists in the ecosystem is becoming more visible?
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l33tbro ◴[15 Dec 15 22:22 UTC] No.10740916[source]▶
It's pure deception. PH presents as egalitarian and meritocratic, but that's clearly horseshit. We need the right person to build a more transparent and credible alternative. They've straight-up lost me as a daily visitor.
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1. AznHisoka ◴[16 Dec 15 01:21 UTC] No.10741742[source]▶
If I was a betting man, I'd bet their daily visitors have shrunk a fair bit the past few months. Who is the type of people who would even visit daily to discover random products that share no theme? Most of them probably are just checking for competitors or journalists looking for a story. Not real actual users. This their downfall.
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2. matznerd ◴[16 Dec 15 04:22 UTC] No.10742360[source]▶
I don't think this is true at all, and I would bet the opposite. They are bringing in live chats/podcasts/etc and going outside of their normal demographics. If anything it is similar how reddit used AMAs (by Obama, etc) to expand the reach of the platform to a wider audience.