HN Self-Promotion Complaints

Users criticize posts and comments on Hacker News as thinly veiled advertisements, spam, or shameless self-promotion for products and companies. Discussions debate the appropriateness of promotional content disguised as genuine discussions.

➡️ Stable 0.5x Startups & Business
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Keywords

OP HN SPONSORED twitter.com ycombinator.com businessinsider.com risingstack.com FWIW NOT URL promotion hn promoting product advertising self advertisement post blog sponsored

Sample Comments

d23 Jul 17, 2013 View on HN

The point of the post seems to be to advertise their product. The comments seem to confirm that.

subjectsigma Sep 22, 2023 View on HN

Thinly veiled advertisement? On my HN?

dang Jan 9, 2016 View on HN

This account's comments are promotional to the point of being spam. Please stop posting them to HN. Discussions here are supposed to be conversations, not commercials.

cloakandswagger Nov 17, 2014 View on HN

Not sure why I'm being downvoted; yes it's self promotion, but highly relevant to the discussion

ivanjermakov Jun 13, 2025 View on HN

Seems like someone (OP or not) is testing how good they can use HN for free advertisement.

15155 Sep 19, 2025 View on HN

Absent substance, how is this not just self-promotion?

t-3 Jun 26, 2023 View on HN

It is an ad, but it's also an announcement with information that many hners will be interested in and enjoy discussing. There are links to tools and blog posts on the topic as well as links to the advertised product. I don't think it's out of place here.

sehr Dec 2, 2013 View on HN

Possibly the most blatant advertising I've ever seen in an HN comment. At least put a bit of effort into it.

rmason Nov 19, 2018 View on HN

This is shameless self promotion for the author's company.

russell Apr 24, 2013 View on HN

I think self promotion is frowned upon. Maybe if you framed it as a Tell HN it might be better received.