Instead of criticizing my article, you’re criticizing me.
Does the content of my article seem dishonest?
I agree affiliate content should be read skeptically but you also have to be realistic: why would anyone go to all this work if not for some financial incentive?
Their comment seems much more directed at the incentives and outcomes of affiliate/content marketing than it does at you personally, so it’s weird to pretend it’s a personal attack.
Especially when you underscore the incentive issues with your closing question: if the only reason you can imagine going to the effort of a substantial review is financial incentive, that in itself is a pretty good criticism.
BOTH people are distorted by the wrong incentives.
It is NOT a question of being pedantic. They're literally not criticizing you when they criticize your incentives. I think this critique is from a board with relatively high percentage of systems-type thinkers.
I wasn’t criticizing you specifically, but yes, your article does seem dishonest.
Your evaluation criteria was downright silly (1), you didn’t actually try most of these tools, and your “top pick” has the highest affiliate payout (and longest affiliate window) on the list.
In fact, I have no idea how this article hasn’t been flagged since low quality affiliate listicles generally don’t make the front page here.
(1) Strict pricing models and not supporting web fonts like Inter are features, not bugs. Cheap platforms have crap quality shared IPs and 70%+ of inboxes (including most Gmail/outlook clients) don’t support web fonts at all. You’re designing something nobody will see correctly:
https://www.caniemail.com/features/css-at-font-face/
Yet you felt the need to come post it to HN to give it a boost. It’s not like you wrote it in good faith and it organically found its way here. This is pure and simple the exact kind of content that drips of bias and deserves all the skepticism it’s receiving here in the comments.
This is silly. Do you have a job where you make a paycheck? Would you spend the same amount of time doing what you do at your job for the company that employs you if they didn’t pay you?
If not, then you also would not put in a bunch of work on anything simply for fun or fame
We're saying that after every single recommendation you should make it bloody clear that you are profiting from this and how much? So people can make the independent decision about whether your 'reasearxh' is to be trusted or thrown in the garbage like it is.
We recommend software products too but don't hide behind euphemisms and hide our commissions.
Does the content of my article seem dishonest?
I agree affiliate content should be read skeptically but you also have to be realistic: why would anyone go to all this work if not for some financial incentive?