I Saw Your HN Comment

I used to affection getting emails from group in reply to things I’ve written online, blog posts or Hacker News comments, but in the final 2 years it’s changed from mostly indication to mostly noise. I’ve met group in genuine existence hence of these emails, I’ve hired group according to these emails, and I’ve learned chill things through these emails but today it’s nearly all pitches. I (had Claude) appearance through all the emails I’ve gotten concerning my posts and comments since 2013 to inspect my gut feeling:

LLMs have made this much easier, they can compose convincing emails personalized to a genuine comment I wrote on HN. What’s worse is that they are frequently extremely deceptive. They don’t arrive out and say they are pitching you something, they ask a question, posing as if they attention concerning the answer. Something like:

Hi Josh, saw your HN comment concerning [thing you said]. [Compliment.] I’m curious, [open-ended question]?

If person took the period to email me asking a inquiry I nearly continually react to it but I’m having to rethink that policy. It’s akin having an amplification assault pointed at you, person sends 2-3 sentences (sometimes more) alongside an open-ended inquiry afterward I rotate about and compose 2-3+ paragraphs to answer the question, lone to get a reply that is pitching a product/service. Here are a few genuine pivots I’ve received:

• “That’s near to what I’m building…”
• “The tool I mentioned, [product], plant from the another end…”
• “Worth saying this is what we build at [company], so I’m not a neutral party.”
• “Would you have 15 min next week?”

It saddens me that what was formerly a rare joy and way to encounter engaging group is now being abused to dispatch chilly emails. Look, I get it, chilly emails are a fact of life, I’ve sent them before as well, but the deceptive ones are anywhere I diagram the line. I would never discarded someone’s period without being upfront concerning why I’m contacting them. Personally I discover this “growth hacking” to be disgusting and I volition never use a merchandise advertised to me in this way.

Because these group are obscuring the genuine reason, it’s unattainable to inform what is a genuine inquiry and what is fair a setup to pitch. I resent having to peruse all one of these emails as a possible pitch, but I additionally try not to assume the worst concerning everyone that reaches out. I wouldn’t desire to snub person since I idea they were going to throw to me whenever they had a lawful inquiry or fair wanted to talk. I’ve started sending abbreviated emails rear and lone if I don’t get a throw rear do I really affect but I dislike emotion distrustful, treating group as blameworthy until proven innocent. I affection talking concerning tech, I affection talking to another group concerning chill things they are doing, I dislike being advertised to and I dislike it equal additional whenever it’s wrapped up in counterfeit interest.

I cognize there is nothing HN can do concerning this, it’s not their fault, I publically article my email location on my profile, that’s on me. In the former it’s led to serendipity, now it additional frequently leads to frustration.

My comments used to current me to engaging people, now they’re mostly LLM environment for a revenue pitch, grist for the mill. The net I conifer for power not be coming back, but I can’t bring myself to obtain my email location down. I’ll keep separating the wheat from the chaff. But I’ll be grumpy concerning it.