Comment by kibwen

As others will be quick to point out, HN does have ads in the form of job postings for YCombinator startups that are delivered inline with the links on the front page. That said, it's relatively unobtrusive. And of course, the existence of HN is a large part of the marketing for YCombinator itself. Personally, I'll commend dang for doing a high-effort job at moderation, and tolerating all the dunking on Paul Graham that we do.