So they appeared in an ad, for a game jam happening in an event that they all take part in, and William literally created and operates at a loss? And the ad is for a non profit? How horrible!
And yes, wills video with anthropic is weird, I skipped it.
FYI, the game jam was not part of Open Sauce, it was completely separate. William created Open Sauce, but he was not very involved in the making of the game jam, he was just invited as a guest.
That said, I agree with the sentiment of your post. I really don’t see anything wrong with the video.
Open Sauce? Believe it or not, it also represents the interests of the rich. Guess why they are there.
William literally created and operates at a loss
Created what? What loss? :.|:;?
EDIT: see reply
the ad is for a non profit
So? A NaNprofit it is, yes. With a few million in the bank. It is funded by corporations (previously also Elon Musk until someone on xitter convinced him it’s somehow related to tesla protests, separate story) to promote their products to literal kids who don’t know any better. And they are bad even at that.
What products are they supposedly promoting to kids? The link you gave for that doesn’t work.
I’ve never seen them do that, and I’ve heard Hack Club staff specifically state that they do not do that, even if a corp sponsors them.
Anyways, that is kind of the whole point of the sponsorship. Companies want AT MINIMUM a giant logo shining on some page if it looks like it’s for some cause (in this case kids education). Products related to sponsors are usually put up as prizes and/or have events built around them as constraint. Example quote from https://blueprint.hackclub.com/prototype :
Build your most amazing AI powered hardware gadget using:
An AI PC powered by AMD Ryzen AI processor
A Hugging Face Le Robot arm
Any additional hardware you need to customize your project
and use it to solve a challenging problem
The biggest advertisement is Slack. Nobody else really uses Slack for anything informal.
Also, how are they advertising through Slack? I’m active on there and I haven’t seen that. They have announcements about their own events, but they don’t advertise products at all.
And yes, it is unusual for Slack to be used as a non-formal space. They use it because most other options can’t handle such a huge amount of users. Not sure how that’s even relevant though?
Yes, and you are now using Slack. You know what Slack is. It is a paid product. You are now more likely to suggest or vote for opening a Slack workspace for a team. And a few dozen other people, too. You are now less likely to use your skills to work towards alternatives, something that Zach promised back in 2016, and also in 2025 when he promised to fork MatterMost.
Ahh I see. I thought you meant advertising through Slack, not advertising Slack itself.
Honestly the fact they use Slack is one of my least favorite things about Hack Club. That said, although I heavily prefer using only open source software, there are very few organizations who do that… Yk, “you can’t let perfect be the enemy of good”.
Rejecting anything that’s not perfect is unrealistic. What we should do instead, is try to improve things.
I don’t know about this promise Zach supposedly made, and I can’t read about it since that article is paywalled. Kind of ironic trying to hate on a organization for using a paid product, while you’re evidence is hidden behind… A paid product.
How do you expect them to get money without sponsorships?
Yes, they accept donations from companies sometimes as prizes for events. So what? Is there something inherently wrong with that?
As you pointed out, Prototype is an exception. I had forgotten about that, but yeah they did have some AMD hardware at the Hackathon that you were expected to use. And I’m not a fan of that.
I’m pretty sure that’s the only time they’ve ever done that though. Even things like GitHub is one of their biggest donors, yet they specfically make a point to allow you to use whatever code hosting server you want.
Donors benefit because resources going to help teens build technical projects benefits the industry as a whole, rather than the donor specifically.
I’m pretty sure that’s the only time they’ve ever done that though
Wrong. Most website YSWSes expect you to use something like bun.js and write so in the manual. Most tutorials expect you to use GitHub. Most 3D printing expects you to use Bambu Labs (and I would need an example where a 3D printer was offered from another brand). This event literally tells you that you will get less if you don’t use sponsored tools, instead of outright saying no or expecting otherwise. And as you may already note, they are normalizing Claude and gamifying it.
No, most YSWSs don’t force you to use bun.js lmao.
Most tutorials assume you use github because it’s… What most people use. Just like how most tutorials about coding in general (not related to Hack Club) also assume you use GitHub. But Hack Club programs intentionally allow you to use any Git service, even your own self hosted one.
About forcing you into using Bambu, I haven’t seen or heard of that and can’t really comment since I don’t do much hardware stuff. All I can say is that is not a thing in the YSWSs I’ve participated in.
This event literally tells you that you will get less if you don’t use sponsored tools
EasyEDA donated discounts to their services you mean? Oh No ThAt’S sO aWfUl TeEnS cAn GeT a DiScOuNt!! It’s just a discount to get your PCBs manufactured. It’s not like it’s encouraging people to buy in to some sort of closed ecosystem or anything, and you still can get stuff from other companies if you want. And from what I can tell, they didn’t raise prices for getting it from other companies.
And as you may already note, they are normalizing Claude and gamifying it
What are you talking about?? One community member made a website that has statistics on how much people use Claude, and suddenly that means that Hack Club is gamifying Claude??
Look, it’s clear you know a lot about Hack Club, so I’m sure you know this, but it seems like you’re pretending it’s not the case, so let me state this:
Hack Club is very loose about what tools you can use. Whether that’s what brands you pick, whether or not you can use AI (up to a certain point), etc. Each Hack Club program can have its own restrictions as they see fit (EG completely banning AI, or having a program about a certain type of software), but Hack Club is not forcing people to use certain brands or use AI, that would be individual YSWSs, which you can choose to participate in or not.
Erm, but ackhually, technically you don’t have to use Vercel or whatever, it’s just because that everyone does that
It’s like LG TVs asking you to accept a bunch of technically optional 300 page license agreements and putting the cursor on “accept”. Technically you may decide otherwise, but you need to already be aware of this beforehand, and most people who would knowingly buy a “smart” TV in the first place would not know.
Hack Club is putting big brands of their sponsors everywhere. You may (sometimes) use more free solutions, but you would need to know these beforehand. And the biggest point of Hack Club is education. Most would literally not know and assume those are the only options.
Erm, but ackhually, technically you don’t have to use Vercel or whatever, it’s just because that everyone does that
Huh? That’s not what I said.
You’re combining 2 separate points I made into one that were never meant to go together.
Please respond to what I actually said, instead of changing it into something stupid so it’s easier to have a come back against.
It’s like LG TVs asking you to accept…
What is like that?
Hack Club is putting big brands of their sponsors everywhere.
I assume you mean products, not brands?
Not really. Sometimes sponsors donate items, and YSWS organizers might put the item as a prize if it makes sense.
But let’s see, Hack Clubs biggest sponsors are…
Elon Musk. Haven’t seen anything about him or any of his companies or products in Hack Club, besides his name on a sponsor list somewhere.
The Thiel fellowship. Same as above.
GitHub. Some guides assume you use GitHub, but like I said previously, that’s because most people use it, and most non HC tutorials also assume you use it. It’s not because they’re a sponsor. Actually, Hack Club has their own free alternative to GitHub and GH Codespaces. They’re definitely not trying to get people stuck on GitHub.
AMD: They donated 16 of their GPUs ig?
NASA (their a partner, idk if they technically sponsored HC): They donated some tickets to the Kennedy Space Center as possible prizes for an event. Is that considered bad? I really don’t think so.
CEO of Shopify: haven’t seen anything related to Shopfiy or any products, advertisements etc.
CEO of Dell: same as above
MIT: same as above
Girls Who Code: same as above
Open Sauce: like we talked about previously, they have partnered together for events, but not to promote any products. It doesn’t seem terrible to me.
Those are Hack Club’s 10 biggest donors. I think this should be pretty obvious: Hack Club accepts donations. They do not sell out to big tech.
So they appeared in an ad, for a game jam happening in an event that they all take part in, and William literally created and operates at a loss? And the ad is for a non profit? How horrible!
And yes, wills video with anthropic is weird, I skipped it.
FYI, the game jam was not part of Open Sauce, it was completely separate. William created Open Sauce, but he was not very involved in the making of the game jam, he was just invited as a guest.
That said, I agree with the sentiment of your post. I really don’t see anything wrong with the video.
deleted by creator
Open Sauce? Believe it or not, it also represents the interests of the rich. Guess why they are there.
Created what? What loss?
:.|:;?EDIT: see reply
So? A NaNprofit it is, yes. With a few million in the bank. It is funded by corporations (previously also Elon Musk until someone on xitter convinced him it’s somehow related to tesla protests, separate story) to promote their products to literal kids who don’t know any better. And they are bad even at that.
What products are they supposedly promoting to kids? The link you gave for that doesn’t work. I’ve never seen them do that, and I’ve heard Hack Club staff specifically state that they do not do that, even if a corp sponsors them.
11 hour account hmmm…
Anyways, that is kind of the whole point of the sponsorship. Companies want AT MINIMUM a giant logo shining on some page if it looks like it’s for some cause (in this case kids education). Products related to sponsors are usually put up as prizes and/or have events built around them as constraint. Example quote from https://blueprint.hackclub.com/prototype :
The biggest advertisement is Slack. Nobody else really uses Slack for anything informal.
Also, how are they advertising through Slack? I’m active on there and I haven’t seen that. They have announcements about their own events, but they don’t advertise products at all.
And yes, it is unusual for Slack to be used as a non-formal space. They use it because most other options can’t handle such a huge amount of users. Not sure how that’s even relevant though?
It is flying over your head that you are on Slack in the first place while you otherwise wouldn’t.
I’m not sure what you mean. I joined so I can chat with other people who are interested in Open Source and coding. What’s your point?
Also, you’re avoiding answering my question…
Yes, and you are now using Slack. You know what Slack is. It is a paid product. You are now more likely to suggest or vote for opening a Slack workspace for a team. And a few dozen other people, too. You are now less likely to use your skills to work towards alternatives, something that Zach promised back in 2016, and also in 2025 when he promised to fork MatterMost.
Ahh I see. I thought you meant advertising through Slack, not advertising Slack itself. Honestly the fact they use Slack is one of my least favorite things about Hack Club. That said, although I heavily prefer using only open source software, there are very few organizations who do that… Yk, “you can’t let perfect be the enemy of good”. Rejecting anything that’s not perfect is unrealistic. What we should do instead, is try to improve things.
I don’t know about this promise Zach supposedly made, and I can’t read about it since that article is paywalled. Kind of ironic trying to hate on a organization for using a paid product, while you’re evidence is hidden behind… A paid product.
Yes, I just joined. So?
How do you expect them to get money without sponsorships? Yes, they accept donations from companies sometimes as prizes for events. So what? Is there something inherently wrong with that?
As you pointed out, Prototype is an exception. I had forgotten about that, but yeah they did have some AMD hardware at the Hackathon that you were expected to use. And I’m not a fan of that. I’m pretty sure that’s the only time they’ve ever done that though. Even things like GitHub is one of their biggest donors, yet they specfically make a point to allow you to use whatever code hosting server you want.
Donors benefit because resources going to help teens build technical projects benefits the industry as a whole, rather than the donor specifically.
Wrong. Most website YSWSes expect you to use something like bun.js and write so in the manual. Most tutorials expect you to use GitHub. Most 3D printing expects you to use Bambu Labs (and I would need an example where a 3D printer was offered from another brand). This event literally tells you that you will get less if you don’t use sponsored tools, instead of outright saying no or expecting otherwise. And as you may already note, they are normalizing Claude and gamifying it.
Diminishing effect.
No, most YSWSs don’t force you to use bun.js lmao.
Most tutorials assume you use github because it’s… What most people use. Just like how most tutorials about coding in general (not related to Hack Club) also assume you use GitHub. But Hack Club programs intentionally allow you to use any Git service, even your own self hosted one.
About forcing you into using Bambu, I haven’t seen or heard of that and can’t really comment since I don’t do much hardware stuff. All I can say is that is not a thing in the YSWSs I’ve participated in.
EasyEDA donated discounts to their services you mean? Oh No ThAt’S sO aWfUl TeEnS cAn GeT a DiScOuNt!! It’s just a discount to get your PCBs manufactured. It’s not like it’s encouraging people to buy in to some sort of closed ecosystem or anything, and you still can get stuff from other companies if you want. And from what I can tell, they didn’t raise prices for getting it from other companies.
What are you talking about?? One community member made a website that has statistics on how much people use Claude, and suddenly that means that Hack Club is gamifying Claude??
Look, it’s clear you know a lot about Hack Club, so I’m sure you know this, but it seems like you’re pretending it’s not the case, so let me state this: Hack Club is very loose about what tools you can use. Whether that’s what brands you pick, whether or not you can use AI (up to a certain point), etc. Each Hack Club program can have its own restrictions as they see fit (EG completely banning AI, or having a program about a certain type of software), but Hack Club is not forcing people to use certain brands or use AI, that would be individual YSWSs, which you can choose to participate in or not.
It’s like LG TVs asking you to accept a bunch of technically optional 300 page license agreements and putting the cursor on “accept”. Technically you may decide otherwise, but you need to already be aware of this beforehand, and most people who would knowingly buy a “smart” TV in the first place would not know.
Hack Club is putting big brands of their sponsors everywhere. You may (sometimes) use more free solutions, but you would need to know these beforehand. And the biggest point of Hack Club is education. Most would literally not know and assume those are the only options.
Huh? That’s not what I said. You’re combining 2 separate points I made into one that were never meant to go together. Please respond to what I actually said, instead of changing it into something stupid so it’s easier to have a come back against.
What is like that?
I assume you mean products, not brands? Not really. Sometimes sponsors donate items, and YSWS organizers might put the item as a prize if it makes sense.
But let’s see, Hack Clubs biggest sponsors are…
Those are Hack Club’s 10 biggest donors. I think this should be pretty obvious: Hack Club accepts donations. They do not sell out to big tech.