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Hacker News has its own karma based system, which gives high karma users a power to create destinies of stories and also users.
Since first page HN listing with an interesting title can generate 2000+ UQ visits in 6 hours to a specific target group, this definitely has some commercial value.
We've seen bots that automatically submit influencer blog posts to HN to gain karma. There are some Chinese farmers on HN which are building their karma to impress pg for YC submissions.
When will the first HN account appear on eBay? Or will it be single upvotes sold to generate long term income for farmers? Do you think this is already happening undercover?