Hacker News Reader

Comment by mercy_dude | Hacker News Reader

Whenever I see an article like this in one of the most activist so called news outlet, I can’t stop myself asking - what is their motive for pushing these? May be to increase residential real estate pricing?

I mean sure, walking is good - I don’t need salon to tell me it is. But question rather is why are mainstream outlets like salon rather pushing these narratives of benefits of walking lately? The activism real estate these outlets have are valuable and limited so the motives are always something I question.

View on HN

Because it generates clicks and clicks generates ad revenue.

A longer answe is that a healthy lifestyle is more and more trendy and people want to know, why does walking help them also mentally. This is as they want to find an easy answer to their problems, such as stress. After reading the article, they will then share the article with their social circle with a message claiming ”This is so true! After I started walking I started feeling so much better”, which generates more clicks, since the other people want to get help too.

It’s seriously not that complicated.

I disagree it is just for click revenue. Outlets like salon and NYTimes don’t need to worry about click revenues, their ad capital has been growing more than ever.

My cynicism comes from the same angle when I see every other week some health benefits from drinking coffee coming out of some studies pushed by the same outlets. Surely it has nothing to do with a billion dollar industry funding and pushing benefits of drinking coffee through these outlets right.

Are you really saying that salon is a front for big-real estate?

It must be the opposite to their own political dogma, so "it must be evil".

> May be to increase residential real estate pricing?

Only if the readers aren't paying attention. Research is also simultaneously showing that urban citizens walk more than their suburban counterparts.

I'm not really understanding the parent commenter's point, but your comment seems like a non sequitur. How does "residential real estate pricing" imply anything about urban vs. suburban?

I would assume the person you're replying to is alluding to higher costs and faster rises in urban areas (at least historically, YMMV since covid)

Because they want people to read things, view ads, and maybe subscribe to their publication.

Its similar to the motive for mundane stories published in magazines 30 years ago: so people read them in exchange for money.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com