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I should have just down-voted the affiliate link and left it at that. Something's changed in the tenor of comments here on HN, and my reaction to it isn't productive. For the foreseeable future, I think I'm going to bite my tongue and read in silence.

How is that principled?? You hate when others benefit even if it's at no detriment to you?? SCARCITY THINKING :_(

Okay, if you like reading text on your screen, you can also read it for free here: http://www.gorgorat.com

I'm happy for people to benefit online in proportion to the value they provide to others. Post a thoughtful comment, write a review, link previously disparate ideas? Sure, put in an affiliate link. Hijack the top comment on a thread with just an Amazon link? Not so much.

At least you were up front about it, I'll give you that. :)

The principle is to minimize the reward from spam.

So shouldn't we just downvote the ones that are spammy -- those that make the conversation worse instead of better?

Shouldn't making the conversation better be its own incentive?

People do things because of a broad variety of motivations. Often because of a combination of motivations. If it's helping and not hurting, who cares?

Someone registered that domain name just to host a pirated copy of a book?

(Mind, it's one of my favorite books).

Hm, looks like it's a way to funnel PageRank into some spam links at the bottom of the page. I guess the theory is that people will link to that domain's copy of Surely You're Joking and pass some of the subsequent "google juice" onward to the spam.