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It hasn't. Declined a lot over past five years. There are days now not a single front page article is motivating enough for me to click on it. I'm sure HN has
by njharman 8y ago
It hasn't. Declined a lot over past five years. There are days now not a single front page article is motivating enough for me to click on it.
I'm sure HN has grown audience and in general appeal over same period
Both that wider appeal and my loss of interest is due to subject shift of content. From mostly high s/n, tech and startup articles to human interest, "life hacks", and long form. From stuff that is directly useful (to a niche audience), to generally applicable entertainment.
- devereaux 8y agoI agree, there seem to be fewer in depth articles. It could be that the audience is changing to a less technical audience, or just getting older. Could you suggest a suitable replacement?
- lazyjones 8y ago> It could be that the audience is changing to a less technical audience, or just getting older. Or, perhaps certain publications like the Guardian, Bloomberg and others have discovered HN as a "guerilla marketing" platform and are posting clickbait-ish articles...
- masonic 8y agoAnd certain sites have essentially all their content shoveled onto HN every day by one or two submitters.
- jimmaswell 8y agoCould your perception of depth have just changed over time?
- anonu 8y agoHN threads should be tagged by category... Maybe automatically based on who comments or upvotes, or content.. and threads should be presented to the user based on interests.
- jimmaswell 8y agoI like it better being a mixed grab bag as it is. We already have other sites like reddit for narrowly tailored experiences.
- d0mine 8y agoPerhaps, it is not HN that changed but you've grown up. As they say (paraphrasing), don't visit places you loved as a child, to avoid killing happy memories.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- bookofjoe 8y agoConversely, visiting your childhood home, where you were miserable, can trigger an episode of major depression. Speaking from experience.
- diminoten 8y agoI am the first person to say that HN isn't special, but to say it's substantially changed in any way is a flat out lie. I've been here for 10 years, and the front page the day I joined could pass for a front page any day this week. Absolutely nothing has changed about HN; some might even argue that is part of the problem.
- karmakaze 8y agoI completely agree with the assessment and reasoning as to why. It bothered me for a long time, then I sort of came to accept that's how it is now. I've run lots of thought experiments on how it could be changed to improve the s/n. It's difficult because newer more mainstream content interested parties outnumber those looking for in-depth articles. I've made a simple re-ordering/filtering of posts[0] that makes it easier to separate types of posts. [0] https://hackerer.news https://hackerer.news
- masonic 8y agonot a single front page article is motivating enough Judging the overall quality of the day's submittals by glancing at the HN front page is like dismissing the content of a newspaper because the front page above the fold headlines don't interest you.
- njharman 8y agoI'm not judging the quality. I didn't even make any state on quality. I'm comparing the front page today to the front page from years ago. And stating it is less interesting to me because it is more broadly interesting. The content has moved from niche to mainstream
- yummypaint 8y agoIf you don't visit HN too frequently, try jumping several pages in. I don't have quantitative evidence to support this, but my experience is that useful content spends a while loitering around the 100-250 mark, while lower s/n posts zip past that range more quickly. The tradeoff is not being able to contribute to discussion it while it's still hot.
- lenocinor 8y agoYeah, as a frequent user of /best, I have a similar problem. But I still prefer to read /best most of the time.