I bet 99% of accusations of "shilling" are false. It seems like everyone wants to believe that the people they disagree with are being paid. It's a form of conspiratorial thinking.
> It seems like everyone wants to believe that the people they disagree with are being paid. It's a form of conspiratorial thinking.
Getting your product to the front page of HN "organically" has gotta be worth a lot, and it would be pretty strange if nothing on the front page was there via some less organic association.
It's not about disagreement or conspiracies, just that everyone talks like they're selling you things now even if they just own the thing and aren't being paid or intentionally 'influencing'. And I remember when it wasn't like that - even on reddit. I don't think it's an intentional thing (which would be your conspiratorial thinking) so much as an emergent property of large, anonymous, loosely connected groups of people where some of the people are only there to sell stuff, which just so happens to be convenient if you're there to sell.
I mean, it's HN. The orange-username "voting ring" is built right in.
I'm still prepared to call that "shilling".
So-called influencers exist on this basis. Influencers' work is initially unpaid, until they show they have a following and can be comfortably loyal to brands. If you follow growing social media accounts, especially on TikTok and streaming platforms, they'll quite often make it clear they hope to be rewarded later (correctly or incorrectly).