"I know HN has a significant aversion to cryptocurrency (which absolutely befuddles me for the foundational societal concepts it modernizes)"
I can't for the life of me figure out why HN keeps hating on bitcoin for the past 10 years since ive been following this site has but has been pretty much spot on about every other tech related subject. It initially discouraged me back in the early days but once you GET it, you realize its one of the biggest technological breakthroughs in the history of mankind.
I think with bitcoin you simply can't read about it but actually get your hands dirty and fully use it to really understand the potential it is going to have.
I had a similar situation where I contacted google and asked permission about having a certain app made. Got the green light from several google teams. Pushed and marketed the app and app brought in 7+ figures of revenue throughout the years. Got shut down after about 2 years randomly with no feedback etc. Even my personal consultants from google that they assign to you had no clue and I was left to fend for myself and just eat the lost/work I put into the app.
It's all about target marketing. I remember some tweets I would make hundreds of dollars and on most of my tweets I was getting $5-$10 epc. The beauty of Twitter is the power of the warm leads in its search. If they can effectively monetize that, there could be light at the end of the tunnel!
There's a whole marketplace of influence out there, if you only start asking the right people. Want a cute but not overly bright reality TV star to tweet about your handbag company? There's a price for that. Looking instead for a popular recording artist to mention your viral video? Pricier, but very doable. Of course, Twitter doesn't get a share of this money.
Which is why they should charge for usage above X followers. You can't send unlimited emails to a 1mil person email list for free so why should you be able to do your marketing for free on twitter?
Having lived in Japan more than 10 years ago, that's the first thing I commented coming back. Why fruits and vegetables were way more delicious there than here. I loved fruits in japan where here its more of a chore when I ate them because I already assumed the bland taste before even biting info it.
I recently had my account disabled over a policy issue. The thing regarding that policy was I had written permission and verbal permission in person to go ahead with my web properties directly from multiple google representatives. I was encouraged and every step of the way and even given ideas that I implemented directly from adsense reps themselves.
It seems unfair especially in my case when they give you the go ahead and you end up investing alot of time and effort only to have one person not like your site and completely disregard all the work you have put in. When the reason for disabling your account is exactly the same reason they encouraged you to create your site in the first place it makes it all that much more frustrating.
My sites were not small either, they had heavy daily usage and brought over 800k in overall advertising revenue in the last 2 and a half years.
I remember submitting coupons on retailmenot and getting them erased. I actually remember contacting them to post coupons that could eventually help their end users and them informing me that they wouldn't post it because it's not an affiliate code and they wouldn't get paid.
As a user, I wasn't getting paid either just wanted to help out since the coupon I found was superior than anything they posted for that store at the time.
Is their mission to help users find deals or pad their affiliate revenue? If it was the latter, their reason they gave me would make sense.
But what's the point of tolerance if you just blindly accept any view, no matter how controversial or offensive, without challenging it? I see nothing wrong with the position of "everyone is entitled to air any opinion whatsoever, so long as anyone else is entitled to challenge them". No-one, as far as I know, has attacked Eich, threatened him, etc. they've just expressed concern about his views, which everyone is perfectly entitled to do.
If you read the comments and tweets there were a lot of nasty personal attacks on Eich and reported physical threats against him for donating to prop 8 five years ago. A amendment that actually passed by the way.
I'm fine with respectful open discussion but the entire situation left me with an uneasy taste in my mouth. If another CEO supported gay marriage and it created a stir like Eich's case did, I would feel the same way. Imagine if Sergey Brin donated to a gay marriage group 5 years ago and it caused such a stir that sites like fox or disney asked you to switch from chrome. Imagine the thousands of tweets criticizing him and the right media making a spectacle out of it calling out his character. That would be ridiculous.
It's about mutual respect and discussing ones differences in a cordial human way. In this case, it was anything but that and the double standard was obviously apparent.
Why don't we "hate the sin, but love the sinner"? Isn't that what Christians that think all gay people (amongst many others blameless groups) are condemned to burn in eternal hellfire say?
As an affiliate marketer, am I the only one that thought OP should of posted a amazon affiliate link and then did a case study on conversions/efficiency of having a link on the front page of HN? lol
I can't for the life of me figure out why HN keeps hating on bitcoin for the past 10 years since ive been following this site has but has been pretty much spot on about every other tech related subject. It initially discouraged me back in the early days but once you GET it, you realize its one of the biggest technological breakthroughs in the history of mankind.
I think with bitcoin you simply can't read about it but actually get your hands dirty and fully use it to really understand the potential it is going to have.