Ask HN: Could HN be monetized to the point of becoming its own entity? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Could HN be monetized to the point of becoming its own entity?

3 pointswallawe12 comments

If so, why hasn't the successful model of HN been replicated for other niche topics besides hacking?

Could it? Yes. Should it? No (My opinion). Would it? No (I highly doubt it).

As for your interior question of why it hasn't been replicated for other topics, I don't think it's simple enough to replicated. HN isn't monetized traditionally so there isn't a successful business model to replicate unless you include the entire company of Y Combinator.

With 120k uniques and over 1.3M pageviews per day (http://www.quora.com/Hacker-News/How-many-users-does-Hacker-...) would advertising revenue not bring in an ample amount of money supposing you could bring in that kind of traffic?

Probably, but I hope not. HN has a community of people really knowledgeable in a lot of areas who really try to maintain a high level of discourse. I fear that the priorities of monitization would alienate many members. I couldnt fault PG for wanting HN to pay for itself, but I hope the community itself would justify its remaining as it is.

I think in HN's case, it pays for itself with intangible branding factors so there is really no need to monetize and like you said, it maintains the integrity of the site. But I was thinking along the lines of a startup. HN's model is so excellent I think it could be applied to a number of niche topics. It would be interesting to know though, to what extent a site like HN could make money if that were its goal.

HN isn't being monetized directly, but it is bringing tremendous value to YC. It's might even be their most valuable asset.

At the very least it could be made into a business on donations alone I am sure.

PG has a great thing going here that is far more valuable to him than money. He isn't aching for food on a daily basis so I doubt he'll ever dream of jeopardizing HN the way it is.

Why don't all the mini sub Reddits count?

I looked into mini sub reddits because my brother said the same thing. But for something like say, finance, there is all kinds of interesting information out there that could be more concisely presented with a HN type of setup. Sub reddits really don't do each topic justice and as you know dont carry the level of discourse that HN does.

Sorry, I don't see how information could be better presented through a HN type of setup than through a subreddit: a subreddit is a HN type of setup. What differences do you see between HN and subreddits that mean information can be more concisely presented on HN?

(I note your other point about the standard of the communities on HN -v- Reddit being different, but I have no opinion on the level of discourse on subreddits that would be off-topic on HN.)

I've been using finance as an example. Here is subreddits finance page: http://www.reddit.com/r/finance. As we have both agreed, you can tell immediately the level of discourse and content quality are lower.

In regards the information presented, concise might not have been the best word choice. I speculate that the user base for /r/finance are not the users you would attempt to attract with what I am suggesting. I think if you could bring out the wallstreet gurus, traders, entrepreneurs of all types, economists, etc. as regular users, the site would provide a unique and valuable experience.

"Level of discourse" and "content quality" are almost purely functions of the community. This means that there is no "HN model" that can be easily replicated unless you have an army of Paul Graham clones somewhere that can attract a similar community.

As we have both agreed, you can tell immediately the level of discourse and content quality are lower.

No, we have not both agreed that.

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