Of course your attention is for sale. Even now, you are posting to a site whose entire purpose for existing is to advertise YC funded companies.
> I still want to participate in the collective modern culture ... so somethings got to give.
Same comment applies to this forum. I want to participate in discussions on HN, and therefore I am subject to the occasional job ad from YC companies. It's not perfect, but it's a bit facetious to compare that to the attention grabbing of Youtube/Amazon, etc who will intentionally curtail my efforts to find content I want, in lieu of something they want to promote.
I agree.
It also doesn't ask for a lot of attention. You don't get notifications, infinite scrolling, custom content for your preferences, and click bait is limited, per the enforced guidelines. There's a bit of FOMO since articles only stay at the top for a while, but there's ways to get around that (RSS, which I use).
HN is a place to discuss interesting ideas first, and YC startups second. The hard work from dang deserves more praise than that!