Hacker News Reader

Only one of these services is brand new and just starting to build mindshare. Only one has no free tier. Only one currently has few enough users that securing a highly desirable username is still wide open: "My new email is billy@hey.com. I love it so far."

View on HN

Excising "no free tier" (because we damn well know "free" products ain't free either - that's not an indicator of marketing), your argument boils down to "one of those services is new, therefore, content marketing."

"All internet discussions of new products are content marketing" seems way overboard for me.

No, that's not correct, it's far more specific. This article advertises the fact that Hey (which is asking you to pay $99 for a service most people currently get for free) has one very significant benefit, a short email address, which might be gone if you don't take immediate action. And the author does this ingeniously, by offering social proof after bonding via attacking a common enemy. As I said earlier, I'm impressed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com