Paid ProductHunt Upvotes?

Ahmed, Hope you're well. Thanks for starting this discussion, and asking important questions! As the #1 Product Hunter* (top voter) I think I'm qualified to answer. 1. This approach is NOT fair game. It is a clear violation of PH Community Guidelines: https://help.producthunt.com/en/... "Do Not Spam - Mass messaging users, asking for upvotes, using bots, incentivizing upvotes, and any other form of artificially increasing activity on your contribution is not acceptable. Self-promoting in comments or discussions will also be removed. Only genuine activity will be accepted on the site. Attempting to "game" your contribution could result in its removal and your loss of contribution access. Failure to meet these guidelines could result in your removal or suspension from the Product Hunt community." 2. It is NOT worth it, for several reasons: a) PH monitors and flags automated/bot activity, and sooner or later you're found out. b) "the cream rises to the top" - no number of votes can compensate for a weak launch, poor product-market fit, bad planning, and/or several other important variables and factors to consider before, during, and after one's launch. Conversely, great products are often sleeper hits: though not top product(s) of the day/week/month/year, these launches gain a small, loyal following which then exponentiates (network effects, power law, etc.) over time. c) Reputation is legacy. The world has, is, and will keep getting smaller. Tech is an even smaller bubble: cheaters/spammers, especially once infamous, never "stay" ahead, if the plan was to "get ahead" (Theranos, Shkreli, etc.) but that's another topic for another discussion. d) Signal vs. noise. This approach distorts true customer/user/community evaluation, feedback, reviews, not unlike paid Amazon (product) and/or Meta/Facebook (Pages) 5-star reviews heavily skew average ratings higher than actual self-reported sentiments. *I mean this not as self-promotion, rather statement of fact: I have manually reviewed and voted for over 213,725 products over the past 7.25 years, without automation/bot/coding. I have been solicited to hunt, upvote, review, comment, share, etc., for countless products and launches by many ambitious entrepreneurs and founders, and have never taken the bait. Doing so would not only compromise my personal ethical and moral compass, but would be doing a huge disservice to my absolute favorite community. Keep hunting. Take care, stay safe, and be well. Cheers! :) Farooq (SF)

I wouldn't touch that offer with a 10-foot pole. As others have mentioned, it's a violation of the PH terms. The ramifications of using it far surpass any benefits. In addition, while getting to the #1 product is the overall goal to get more eyes on your hunt, it's not worth it in my opinion if it's not driving feedback or sign-ups within your product.

Hey, @sfali789 Thank you for bringing up that point. I was launching a new product and was faced with this kind of approach, honestly, I'm not convinced by paying 2500$ for buying upvotes, I think it's better to invest in posting quality content and building an honest community!

I think paying $2500 is not a good option. First of all, it's not fair. Even if your Product is number on the Product Hunt, in this way, you can not achieve your desired result of the sale. Organic and genuine activity can boost your Product; I think you should go for the genuine activity.