Sellers Offer Fake GitHub Stars and Other Metrics to Founders Seeking to Impress Investors
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GitHub stars have become a target for founders looking to impress investors, though stars alone won't get follow-on meetings.
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Metrics like stars can become "gamed" when they are used too heavily in decision making, rendering them less useful over time.
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An online shop called Baddhi Shop sells fake GitHub stars and metrics for other platforms like Product Hunt and Kaggle.
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The shop's founder claims selling fake metrics is aboveboard and not spam as long as platforms' terms of service are followed.
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Discord, popular with crypto projects, is the most purchased metric on the shop, though Discord bans the practice.