The reddit audience was historically very resistant to advertising. When it began it really wasn't a million miles away from the HN audience, could you imagine the drama we'd have here on HN if suddenly banner ads started appearing?
Reddit grew to the point where its audience is now a lot more broad and the previous audience is a vocal minority. They can get away with ramping up ads and other behaviour because the audience is no longer sufficiently monolithic to revolt.
Bearing in mind in the past the audience did revolt and basically kicked out the then CEO (temporary CEO but still...) Ellen Pao, in what was a kind of full scale riot that shut most of the site.
The ads are already happening all over HN. Don't you see the jobs posting for YC companies?
Remember that YC is an investment company. They certainly made billions of dollars through the companies they funded, that were in part thanks to HN.
Every time you send a direct job application to a HN company, that's 20% of your yearly salary staying in the company instead of going to recruiter fees. That's the hell of a revenue per click.
Yes, they've always been there since the beginning of HN that's in large part why nobody cares. I am talking about the kind of advertising for random crap that turns up on other websites, HN doesn't need to do that because frankly HN isn't that big (compared to reddit) and has deep pockets.
Reddit grew to the point where its audience is now a lot more broad and the previous audience is a vocal minority. They can get away with ramping up ads and other behaviour because the audience is no longer sufficiently monolithic to revolt.
Bearing in mind in the past the audience did revolt and basically kicked out the then CEO (temporary CEO but still...) Ellen Pao, in what was a kind of full scale riot that shut most of the site.