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+---
+date: 2026-05-02
+author: "@eps"
+title: Ads at Hack Club
+---
+Yesterday, I got an email from Jared Friedman, a partner at Y Combinator. I met him a few weeks ago when he did an AMA with us. He was reaching out to invite you to apply for Y Combinator Startup School, and wanted to let me know that Hack Clubbers’ applications would be given special consideration. All you have to do is say you’re in Hack Club.
+
+*This is great*, I thought! Here’s a super competitive program that many Hack Clubbers absolutely want to get into, and one of the *partners at Y Combinator* is telling me they will give you all a leg up on the applications. Dream come true! Where do I announce it?
+
+I came up with two ideas: #present, and replying to my original AMA announcements. Nobody reads #present. Some of you will read the replies, but it won't reach everyone who would want to be reached.
+
+When we have a great opportunity for you, and can't tell you about it, something is amiss.
+
+**The Case Against Ads**
+
+I use an adblocker. I obsessively unsubscribe from promotional emails. One time, when a company didn’t offer a way to unsubscribe, I reported them to the state of California for it.
+
+In simple terms, the case against ads is that they are annoying. They disturb my mental quiet. The advertiser takes some of your time and attention–both of which are precious and finite–and in exchange you receive awareness of their product. In my opinion, this transaction is generally good for the advertiser and bad for the audience. Most products are not worth my money, and therefore ads about them are not worth my time.
+
+The Fire Department has rules against spam, on the simple idea that anything besides the point of the channel degrades the quality of the channel, by watering down its purpose. This is the same reason why you often see one subreddit for memes and shitposts about a topic, and then a second subreddit for all other discussion of the topic. The memes and shitposts have to be separated out, or they would drown out other interests.
+
+**The Case for Ads**
+
+Multiple Hack Clubbers have told me that their first hackathon was a life-changing experience. If a postcard gets someone to go, isn’t that worth it? And if you get an unwanted postcard, isn’t that a worthwhile price to pay for someone else having a life-changing experience? It’s the tiniest of tiny sacrifices.
+
+You probably joined Hack Club because of an ad. Most people do. Ads are how people find out what we’re doing. And when you’re in Hack Club, ads tell you what is happening next. Sometimes we have things like [ysws.hackclub.com](https://ysws.hackclub.com) to promote YSWS, or #amas to promote AMAs, but these can’t reach everybody.
+
+#announcements is actually ads. We tell you about things we want you to do. Come to this AMA. Join this YSWS. Etc. The transaction is we take your attention, and in exchange you get awareness of a product. And everybody loves it.
+
+**The Part Where I Explain it All**
+
+When people complain about ads, I think they actually mean three things.
+
+First, ads that only benefit the advertiser. Vibecoded ads for vibecoded projects, people promoting some external Hackathon that you don’t want to go to and which might be a scam, etc.
+
+Second, ads that get repetitive. This was the complaint in #ysws: the same ad appearing over and over, flooding the channel.
+
+Third, ads that appear somewhere they aren’t expected. @thetridentguy told me that in 9th grade, he saw a FIRST Robotics poster in his school, and when he joined FIRST, the materials included a promo for Hack Club. That’s actually two ads, but nobody objects to posters in the hallway or a promo flier in your startup kit. We’re lucky Aiden saw those ads. Hack Club would be a lesser place if he hadn’t.
+
+Point one is easily solved. Only run ads whose ultimate purpose is to benefit Hack Clubbers. This is easy for Hack Club, because all day long we sit around inventing new ways to give you guys our money. Everything we advertise is to enrich you, not us.
+
+Point two is easily solved. Everybody knows the difference between once, twice, and spam, and the community is good at Shrouding it when it happens.
+
+Point three is the actual source of tension. Too many places for ads and we disturb your mental quiet. Too few, and we cannot reach you with information that benefits you. The key is carving out ad space that everybody sees, but that doesn’t get in the way.
+
+**The Hack Club Solution**
+
+Let’s run an experiment.
+
+First, I want to try a weekly ad roundup in key Slack channels. Here’s how it works:
+- The channels will have a couple of volunteers to be their Adding Machines (You ship a better name, I ship my sincere thanks)
+- The Adding Machines will oversee a way to submit ads, for example a fillout form
+- The Adding Machines will decide which ads ought to run. Ads should be:
+ - Relevant to the channel topic
+ - About something with a clear benefit to the Hack Club community
+ - Short
+- Once per week, the Adding Machines will send a single message with a roundup of all the ads.
+
+Hopefully this will give you an easy way to see things that can make your life better, without clogging up your favorite channels.
+
+DM me if you want to volunteer.
+
+*[You can apply to Y Combinator Startup School here.](https://events.ycombinator.com/startup-school-2026) Be sure to mention that you’re from Hack Club.*