Comment by paulcole
7 hours ago
> But I’d argue their underlying spirit isn’t the same.
And your argument is based on the fact that you’d like this to be true as well as the fact that the vc company behind this site said, “Trust us bro!”
How is that different from the cow saying, “The farmer told us we’re walking through a fun maze!”
I may have overthought this and wandered into territory I don’t actually have strong convictions about. My original impulse was simply to show some love for Woz.
I mean
Marketing budgets can fund stuff whose authenticity is independent of who’s writing the check, right? Especially when their audience is extra-contrarian and sensitive to authenticity. Xerox can be an evil megacorp and also be sugar daddy to the PARC.
If the fun maze is taking YC’s money and using it to start a company, sure, I see your point. I’d say (right here on YC’s digital estate!) probably don’t do that.
If the fun maze is the community that’s emerged on this site, which is indeed something the VC firm sponsors (surprisingly cheaply)…
Then in my case, it’s different because I frequently walk through the fun maze for as long as the maze is fun, then I wander back out to my fields. If the maze stopped being fun, or started requiring me to set aside my values, I would stop coming, and the farmer knows that.
The farmer doesn’t prod me, much less sneak up on me with a captive bolt. He doesn’t try to milk me while I’m walking through his maze. If I’m ever considering selling my steak, I’ll probably apply commercial reasoning to my choice of abattoir, regardless of how fun the maze was.
I contribute voluntarily, I enjoy the voluntary contributions of others. It’s a maze where people want to come.
I’d like this to be true, so I contribute to it being true, and I observe others contributing to sustaining its truth too. Intersubjective belief creates reality!
> Marketing budgets can fund stuff whose authenticity is independent of who’s writing the check, right
I think “follow the money” is the cliche that applies here.
> Especially when their audience is extra-contrarian and sensitive to authenticity.
I think you mean that the audience likes to think of itself as extra-contrarian and sensitive to authenticity?
The audience will talk until they’re blue in the face about why this marketing project (HN) is so much different from and so much more authentic than other marketing projects.
The marketing seems to be working on this supposedly contrarian and sensitive to authentiity audience!