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Comment by altern8

9 hours ago

I'll never understand commenting to show HNs with a link to competing products.

If it has context I appreciate them because it helps me make better informed decisions. Why not? HN isn't an editorials page exclusive for posters (except YC slop lol)

Why?

  • Just goes against the spirit of people writing their own utils and sharing to me. Good on OP. They're not looking for money or fame here. If this util benefits one reader on HN it's worth it.

  • Because OP is trying to promote his project and get feedback, and you post about a competing product, to me the message is: don't look at the project OP wants you to check out, I've been using this instead and and it's amazing!

    Who cares what you're using, I see show HN posts to be about OP's project, seems like a dick move to me to diverge attention to some other project. I just don't understand the motivation

    • The first thing I always want to know is, what does OP's project offer over pre-existing mature ones? Especially important when I'm seeing an increasing amount of projects that don't seem to even bother considering pre-existing projects.

    • I never read such comments in that way, the way I read them is actually like feedback to OP around benchmarking against competition.

      Personally I love knowing about my competition, and it helps me with how I can differentiate and win over certain niches.

      I don't know about OP, but I'm never offended by that, always grateful, helps me craft my message and delivery to the right audience and map out strategy.

      I try not to over read into the open internet motivation behind end users, they may become customers, so I rather welcome them and seek to understand rather than judge.

    • Recommending similar projects helps everyone, including the creator of the project. Knowing your competition enough to recommend them forces you to be clear about what truly differentiates you.

      > When you show up as a marketer and say, “I need to sell you this because my commission is on the line. I need to sell you this because I’ve decided this is what I do for a living.” You’re not showing any empathy. You’re being a selfish, short-term narcissist, which is what most marketers are.

      > You show up and say, “It sounds like you need this. My competitor sells that. Here’s their phone number.” You’re being a human.

      > If you’re not willing to eagerly recommend a competitor who sells a solution you don’t sell, then we’ve gotten to the truth of who you are and what you’re seeking to do. If you are willing to do that, then there is somebody for who you have the right solution. Find that person. Don’t try to persuade the other people that they’re wrong.

      - Seth Godin

    • It could help people. It's possible the sigabrt didn't even care to Google about Healthchecks.io before I decided to vibe code his own.

      Also, what do you really think the odds are that sigabrt.dev will still exist in 2 years from now? Or 5?