5 ms·

For me, HN started off as an alternate news source to reddit; there's more signal to noise with every article on the front page. Even if it wasn't newsworthy p

For me, HN started off as an alternate news source to reddit; there's more signal to noise with every article on the front page. Even if it wasn't newsworthy per se, you could (and still can) count on a vast majority as free and surprisingly in-depth knowledge. An example - once their was an article on MIT's free online course; a specific lesson on Chinese Architecture was a godsend when I had been trying to expand my footprint in architecture theory. I'm an illustrator / comic artist / graphic designer triad, if it counts. :)

curuinor 10y ago
Quite hilarious, since Reddit was one of YC's first investments
- dang 10y ago
  One of HN's origin stories is that pg finally got around to writing it when Steve and Alexis stopped accepting his feature requests.
  - mvp 10y ago
    Oh that's interesting. I remember being hooked to reddit when it launched. And then after a while it started slipping and was happy to find HN (quite possibly through reddit or maybe pg essays) which was a bit like the original reddit, but much better.
    - dang 10y ago
      Precisely, and that was no accident, since the idea for both sites came from pg. Of course he knew it was in Reddit's interest to grow, but when it lost the property of being interesting for him personally to read, he created HN, a much smaller sibling, and kept it that way by design.
  - charisma_stupid 10y ago
    It's also one of the reasons I want to write something like HN.
    - dang 10y ago
      You should. HN can't be all things, so if you'd rather have something else, create it and make a community with others who share your preferences. Several have spun off from HN over the years, much as HN did from Reddit. There is room for a lot more internet communities. Plenty of permutations haven't been tried yet, or were tried and failed for extraneous reasons.

5 ms·

For me, HN started off as an alternate news source to reddit; there's more signal to noise with every article on the front page. Even if it wasn't newsworthy p

by kradeelav 10y ago

curuinor 10y ago
Quite hilarious, since Reddit was one of YC's first investments
- dang 10y ago
  One of HN's origin stories is that pg finally got around to writing it when Steve and Alexis stopped accepting his feature requests.
  - mvp 10y ago
    Oh that's interesting. I remember being hooked to reddit when it launched. And then after a while it started slipping and was happy to find HN (quite possibly through reddit or maybe pg essays) which was a bit like the original reddit, but much better.
    - dang 10y ago
      Precisely, and that was no accident, since the idea for both sites came from pg. Of course he knew it was in Reddit's interest to grow, but when it lost the property of being interesting for him personally to read, he created HN, a much smaller sibling, and kept it that way by design.
  - charisma_stupid 10y ago
    It's also one of the reasons I want to write something like HN.
    - dang 10y ago
      You should. HN can't be all things, so if you'd rather have something else, create it and make a community with others who share your preferences. Several have spun off from HN over the years, much as HN did from Reddit. There is room for a lot more internet communities. Plenty of permutations haven't been tried yet, or were tried and failed for extraneous reasons.