
Ask HN: Is HN Dead? - archibaldJ
My apologies for the outrageous title.<p>As someone who started reading HN 7 years ago and (started participating in this amazing forum in late 2013, but of course mostly reading because I don&#x27;t always have interesting things to say), I feel like over the years things have changed a lot on HN. The content here have a very different taste to them now. It might look like I am following the hashtag-X-is-dead trend and trying to play devil&#x27;s meta-advocate here. I am just wondering what have changed and why I feel this way.<p>Please don&#x27;t get me wrong. Of course there are still a lot of interesting topics and discussions going on and overall HN remains a unique place on the Internet and I&#x27;m still learning a lot reading HN - that has never changed.<p>But if someone is to ask me if HN is dead I would answer in the affirmative. HN in the recent years is just not the same HN I grew up with. It felt like a different place. It&#x27;s like if I were to market a product to people here vs market the product to people here 4 years ago I will do it very differently (or even change the product, maybe).<p>I&#x27;m just curious what are other people&#x27;s thoughts on this. Perhaps I am just being anal. Perhaps I&#x27;m becoming more narrow-minded as the world gets more polarised. So here is the question: will you agree or disagree with the proposition that &quot;HN is dead&quot; and why?
======
ThrowawayR2
Seems fine to me. What exactly do you see as the problem? " _HN in the recent
years is just not the same HN I grew up with._ " is rather unsubstantive.

------
the_hoser
Is a person dead when they change from being a child to an adult? Is a company
dead when they transition from an old business to a new one?

Things change. Just because they aren't what they used to be, doesn't mean
they're "dead", even if you don't like the change.

~~~
ct520
Rationalizing this comment with my own experiences. Me: Asking old friend meet
up for happy hour at bar. Friend: Sorry man, I can't my wife wont let me. Me:
You're dead to me! Proof that things can change and they can be dead to
someone. /me drops mic.

Serious note though, I agree I think things have evolved. I still like the
content, its just a bit different.

------
DevKoala
Rose tinted glasses IMHO. HN back then was a lot of “I re-implemented X in new
front end framework Y”. Where Y was Meteor 89% of the time.

------
hn_throwaway_99
I disagree with the style of your post, that's for sure.

You're fishing. It would be one thing to say "Why don't we see more posts
about topic X?" or "I find these types of discussions don't happen as much
because ... What do you think?"

But instead you put up a nebulous, obviously hyperbolic "Is HN Dead" post.
Your post adds little to the type of substantive discussion that is valuable
on HN.

~~~
archibaldJ
Well spoken mate. Let me think hard and try to be more specific.

------
tenebrisalietum
Tech exists in a new world now. The tech itself and it's surrounding landscape
is starting to get boring.

\- It's dominated by fewer companies that only seem to grow larger and larger.
These companies haven't changed for a long time. Boring.

\- Everyone decided X86 is going to be the main platform for everything that's
not a smartphone or embedded device. Hardware has become boring and locked
into this.

\- Anything embedded that can have 32MB or more of RAM is an ARM-based Linux
system. I think there's still a few MIPS holdouts. Embedded has become boring
until RISC-V gets critical mass.

\- Anything new mobile is either Samsung or iPhone. ARM bricks with
touchscreens, battery, and a bunch of sensors. Fundamentally not different
than the 2000's, just faster, more efficient, etc. Smartphones and mobile have
become boring.

\- Most people are poorer now than they were in the boom 90's when all this
started. So everything becomes a spy platform to deliver ads. This is so
common it's boring now.

\- The smartphone and streaming have replaced the TV for everyone except
boomers. Video streaming as a technology stopped being interesting a long time
ago.

\- Facebook and apps have replaced the news for most people. The rest have
24/7 cable news broadcasts. Facebook has been around a long time. It's not a
mystery how Facebook works. It's boring.

So, political, social questions are coming more to the forefront.

------
samizdis
> I feel like over the years things have changed a lot on HN. The content here
> have a very different taste to them now. It might look like I am following
> the hashtag-X-is-dead trend and trying to play devil's meta-advocate here. I
> am just wondering what have changed and why I feel this way.

What, roughly, is it that you say has changed a lot? Would it be the
broadening of topics, from purely software/tech to news and political topics
which software/tech has influenced, and is now enmeshed with?

I read HN for years before I signed up. In my case, I joined because I wanted
to become involved in some conversations - now open to me as a potential
participant rather than as a clueless but interested observer. For me, HN
changed - for better or worse - in ways that included me more. My background
is as a production-side journalist (sub-editor, deputy editor etc) who became
fascinated by tech when, in 1994, I took an online role in a pioneering news
project in the UK. After that, I combined news roles with informing the design
of CMSs and other newsroom tools; I have worked with many developers. Now, I
am more in project/product management of, mainly, media tools.

For me, at any rate, HN has shifted from an interesting source of tech news -
what are the latest frameworks, what's happening with search/tracking/social
technologies - to discussions of how these things impinge on or affect my work
and life. I still enjoy reading all the way-over-my-head stuff, anything from
Hubble to Ligo to quantum mechanics, though.

Is your objection to HN now vs then because you see it along the lines of the
"Eternal September"[1] influx of inappropriates who in effect choked Usenet to
death?

I see it differently - and, of course, I am just guessing at your objections -
and enjoy my time on HN; so many subject specialists and practitioners,
pioneers even, chip in across so many domains.

The success of HN for me, I suspect, hinges partly on a self-policing group of
contributors and commentators, but also and even more so on some deft, even-
handed and nicely judged moderation by real people.

Edited to add clarification of Eternal September:

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September)

------
sixothree
This makes me realize I have been here since 2008. This is the first site I
open in the morning. I come here for the comments. I wish I had more to
contribute.

But to your question, I have noticed the comments in general appear shorter,
less useful, more "armchair expert", and in more of a bubble. And yes I feel
like I am partially to blame.

------
meowface
I haven't been there for as many years as you, but I haven't noticed it change
that much beyond an increase in political remarks and debates in the comment
sections, and overall political polarization. But unfortunately, that's the
case pretty much everywhere.

------
Theodores
HN respawns on a daily basis.

Content on the home page is gone and new content arrives. Due to the
moderating system it is not as if every story is hogged by the same people
insistent on the world believing their viewpoint.

However, what does 'kill' HN for would be participants is nitpicking. It is
easier to be destructive and to mod something down for a minor detail than it
is to write something substantive. Some people may find life is too short for
ungrateful nitpicking behaviour and go elsewhere where ideas can be shared and
improved on rather than nitpicked.

------
iamben
Been a member for nearly ten years - it's the only website I've visited
(probably) daily for ten years, which I think says something. There's more
people, for sure - but content remains useful and discussion remains higher
quality than most other places.

------
core-questions
This happens everywhere, as you no doubt already know. The question is, "where
next"?

I imagine a lot of people here came from usenet, slashdot, digg, early Reddit,
etc. continuing to move on as the sites went more and more mainstream and
began to lose their character.

What's next?

------
jaeyson
I don't see any change (I think), only my beard.

------
drtillberg
You mean down-voting and incivility? It depends on the topic.

------
vearwhershuh
HN seems pretty close to what it has always been: a technology oriented forum
with occasional politics flare ups. Comments outside the technocracy consensus
are nuked with downvotes, but trolls are pretty effectively moderated (thank
you dang, despite our run-ins).

As the technocracy consensus has reacted to the election of Trump the band of
acceptable discussion has narrowed a bit, but it isn't awful.

------
kirubakaran
HN is dead, long live HN!

