Comment by throw10920
2 days ago
In addition to "Internet points" mentioned above - influence operations, both from nation states (e.g. the PRC 50 Cent Party, and probably the dozen most powerful nations in general), and from gray/black-market marketing companies.
Influence is valuable, and HN is a place that people who are aware of it trust highly.
(AI generation of random comments helps build "trustworthy" accounts that can then be activated when a relevant issue comes up)
Ok, those are probably not deterred by guidelines though.
They absolutely are. You ever done any work fighting spam? It's all about making it hard and expensive enough for spam to land that it's no longer economically viable - you den't and can't actually stop all spam. Same thing here.
Sure, the bad actors don't particularly care for the guidelines - until their accounts start losing karma and getting dead'd/banned. Then they do, and that still materially improves the site.
Relevant XKCD https://xkcd.com/810/