I replied to another comment about further context: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45845763

In short, I made sure that the subject matter was right—"how can I stream the Lakers when I am in Los Angeles"—and that there was no schilling. I ensured that users were otherwise active in the communities that they were posting in, and that it wasn't just spamming referral links. Everything had to be tasteful or I'd kick them off the platform, which happened once after the person told me they were going to do it anyway.

Yeah I think it's a valid business strategy that you're entitled to do and to be clear wasn't meaning to imply any sort of ethical concerns.

Maybe this is a personal hangup my side but not a fan of paid services trying to extract additional value via other routes too - whether that's selling your data, taking up attention by bombarding me with marketing, cross-selling, showing me ads...or asking me to do guerilla marketing.

The closer companies stick to "I give you money, you give me service" the better I judge them. Maybe I'm just jaded...

> A service doing this would instantly be on my shit list.

Most people would just ignore it and move on if they didn't want to participate. Sweating the small stuff is no good for one's health. I personally don't dedicate any brain cells to a shit list. Sounds stressful.