> Not everything has to be commercial.

HN comments aren't free to host though. There is compute involved. How are they paying for that compute?

If it is out of boredom and good will, that's cool. But I very much am keeping that in mind when I comment here. I don't expect a hobby site to stay up long term because they'll just shut it down when it stops being fun.

If HN is paying for this from advertisements and job postings, well there is your answer. It is commercial.

Any way you want to stretch it, HN is not pay-to-play.

I am not against commerce; I am against a pay-to-play internet.

You can’t get around the fact that HN is pay to play too though. that is my point.

You aren’t paying a fraction of a cent to post comments, but you’re paying in other ways. You just prefer the business model of HN, but i find the fraction of a cent model to be more straightforward and clear.

You can't win this argument, hackernews isn't "pay to play". You are currently playing with it and you didn't pay even a microtransaction. Why do you keep saying it is pay to play? For whatever reason HN providers are doing it as a free service and you aren't paying anything.

HN sells me as their audience to advertisers right?

Would you say that Youtube is “free” as well?

Many people would simply prefer a more transparent / straight forward business model and I don’t think they are wrong for having that preference.

You either don't know what "pay to play" means, or you're being disingenuous.

Have you heard the phrase “time is money”?

I would say that Youtube is pay to play as well. You’re just paying with your attention to their advertisers.

I don’t think this logic is misplaced. HN has the same business model as all “free” tech platforms, doesn’t it?