I don't see any mention of being ready to completely pivot from your original, lofty mission ("best search with no ads") to exactly the opposite ("ads are money").
Google was a successful, unsustainable search engine before it was a successful business.
Facebook was a successful social network waay before it was a successful business.
Reddit was... You can see where I am going with this.
Anything that gets eyeballs will be paid for by ad placement. I think that's the "dirty" (open) "secret". Many industries are paid for by ads, not just tech companies. Though, tech companies have taken a huge chunk out of the entertainment industry as YouTubers, Instagrammers and TikTokkers (etc.) are now creating that entertaining content for the tech companies. All in an effort to capture eye balls.
And Hacker News is no different. Everyone who's on here long enough will slowly learn about Y Combinator. HN is an ad placement site for YC and YC affiliates. HN is much more than that of course, and that is why the ad placement works so well. Personally, I find the way HN is doing it tasteful. Moreover, it's not the only reason why HN exists, it's a synergy thing. With that said, there's still the same dynamic in there.
I never disputed that (I think I actually said "ads are money" ;).
Google story is peculiar because their founders started with "ads are evil" mantra. If it wasn't for that (and support for free software communities), us geeks would not have recommended Google to everyone and their dog over Altavista, Yahoo or whatever else was there at the time. We certainly would not have gotten our non-techy pops and grandmas to use the Google of today.
At some point, I was proud to wear a Google shirt I got from them during the early days.
"Fool your users while you smother the competition with good tech" is an important part to Google's success: as PaulG mentions, Google is a good example because everyone knows about them.
People partially flocked to them (me included) because of their public stance on ads, and then they played me.
Without claiming things they did the opposite from, one can't help but wonder if they would have ever succeeded? And would that have made them a story to tell at all?
Google was a successful, unsustainable search engine before it was a successful business.
Facebook was a successful social network waay before it was a successful business.
Reddit was... You can see where I am going with this.