>>zkldi+(OP)
Just to be clear: you can do this with basically all social media, but I think it's an interesting discussion to be had that these services exist (and have specific detail, such as the comments[1] or FAQ[2]) one. This isn't a knock against any of the HN staff, but rather about how discussion can be paid for and shaped.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20210126003211/https://upvotes.c... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20210126003211/https://upvotes.c...

EDIT: looks like this hug-of-deathed the site, thats certainly one way to deal with this.

>>zkldi+(OP)
Looks like it can't handle HN traffic - getting 500 errors.

Here's the relevant pages from the Internet Archive:

- https://web.archive.org/web/20210302035850/https://upvotes.c...

- https://web.archive.org/web/20210120172656/https://upvotes.c...

Upvotes are $1.95, "max: 10/new post - We upvote with very strong accounts; if you don’t make it to the main page after at most 10 of our upvotes and a few organic ones, more won’t help!"

Comments are $7.50

Presumably figuring out which "very strong accounts" are used for this would be a case of buying some upvotes and comments and watching which accounts are used.

>>simonw+N1
Yeah and this one is a nice read, too:

> http://web.archive.org/web/20210126003211/https://upvotes.cl...

Frankly, it would be enough for dang to buy one and ban all these accounts. They would have to gather all their karma from zero. Ethically grey though.

>>zkldi+(OP)
If you are so insecure that you need to buy upvotes to make the front page of HN, then you are probably in need of some psychological help.

Seriously - get help.

https://www.mentalhealth.gov/

>>MR4D+J2
It's probably less of a personal thing and more of a marketing/advertisement campaign thing.

The website itself claims to be organic advertising, and it's certainly something that would work. This is actually used in practice on sides like Reddit[1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxNvUWN3vYk

>>MR4D+f5
Whoops, looks like they took it down. There's a reupload here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SAkUs3urrg.

And it depends on your definition of advertisement, I guess. A new version of $product coming out getting to the front page here is advertisement, but (in theory) organic, from people who are genuinely interested in $product.

If that's taken advantage of (like it is in reddit), then you can manufacture that organic "advertising".

From what other people in the thread are saying, it appears HN mods clamp down hard on this stuff, so it's probably not much of a concern here, but it's still interesting to see.

>>Sheinh+Hj8
Ok, peace! I probably overreacted as gus_massa kind of nailed it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27583671