HN had a major Eternal September crisis in 2011, which was widely acknowledged by many users, and Paul Graham himself. It got to the point where he experimented

HN had a major Eternal September crisis in 2011, which was widely acknowledged by many users, and Paul Graham himself. It got to the point where he experimented with the gamification aspects of the site in a token attempt to slow the decline. Naturally, at the time, many folks also made comments similar to yours. That was 7 years ago. The good ol' HN is never coming back, at least not here, but that's no justification for denying it ever existed.