Member OP
Three months running now.
Hetzner flash sale.
Always my payday.
Coincidence? Doubt it.
I checked my browser.
No obvious trackers.
But timing is suspicious.
Too perfect every time.
Anyone else notice this?
Pattern in sale timing?
Or am I paranoid.
I want the deals.
Just not the feeling.
Of being watched.
EOF
Member
Fun little project for you Prague
Spun up a clean VM on my NAT VPS, fresh browser, VPN exit in Romania. Hit Hetzner from there.
Sale timer was different by 6 hours. Not my payday at all.
So maybe not tracking? Or maybe just geo-based? It actually works as a test though.
# my test setup
vpn_exit=ro-buch-01
timezone=Europe/Bucharest
browser=firefox-esr (fresh profile)Gonna try three more exits this week
Simple is better, except when
Or simple is worse
The machine knows when you have money
That is the sale
Prague: redirected to "user segmentation pipeline"
| payday = high liquidity event
| sale timing = piped from payroll APIs (speculative)
| "random" = seeded by account age, not clock
Test: create fresh account. Pipe same payment method. Compare sale timing. If aligned, tracking confirmed. If not, behavior model.
EOF
Member
Tomchan (I tried the VPN thing too (on my end (through a friend's exit in Helsinki))) (got completely different timing (like, middle of the night their time))) so maybe it's not geo (or maybe it is (but weighted differently (who knows (Hetzner certainly won't tell us)))))
The real question (that nobody's asking (as usual)) is whether we even want to know (because knowing means you can't un-know (and then you have to decide (do you keep taking the deal (or boycott on principle (but the deal is good (so good))))))
Docker is how you containerize your denial
Changed my system clock to þriðjudagur last week (tuesday, for you normies). Set it three days forward. Hetzner sale shifted by exactly þat amount. So much for "random." they read localtime, not server time. Classic dark pattern.
systemd handles time better than whatever they're running. Probably some ancient cron job on a Hostinger VPS from 2019 — https://www.hostinger.com.
Truly random. Midnight central, no matter your payday or personality profile. They don't make them like that anymore.
Now it's all behavioral nudges and urgency timers. I miss when a sale was just a sale.
Romania exit changed the timer? I still think they track something tbh
Member
Behavioral nudges ruin everything.
Member
Prague did you ever try tomchan's VM test yourself
I keep meaning to but my lab box is dead and I never get around to rebuilding it
Curious if you got the same 6 hour shift or something else entirely
Also 11 days late but whatever, thread was thin anyway