Either HN re-organizes the whole system so that "nothing can be lost" to the careful user - maybe in an encyclopedic txonomical tree -, or threads will be lost. This Solar powered etc. initiative is new to me, for example.
I believe it has also come up a few times in other forms. There was a post about the use of dithering, then another post in response to that, and so on.
It was approximate, because I didn't have the original images (Or I only had one), but IMO JPEG looks better per pound of bits than dithering. At the same bitrate as their dithered images, it looks a bit crummy, but you can still pick up details that the dithering loses.
They won't admit it's for the aesthetic. If dithering looked as good bit-for-bit as JPEG, independent of aesthetic, nobody would have invented or adopted JPEG.
They would have to admit to transmitting more data (thus using more carbon) for aesthetics. That would undermine their blog and make some of their posts look very hypocritical.
In previous discussions about the site/posts on the site on HN I remember the site owner getting very butthurt in threads over criticism. I don't have specific links however. Just anecdata.
You surprised? They serve (in the "about" page) one big page for everything, with everything (80% of it user comments, I noted nearby), and their motto is
«radically reduce the energy use associated with accessing our content»!
Why publishing a page on the topic of sustainability, and the page (markup) is 257KB big, when 54KB is the author's HTM and and the rest, _four fifths_, are visitors' comments?!
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29531145
6 months ago, 1225 points, 357 comments. So a dupe it is.