I think the point is to discover new information, but by restricting the set to prevent only seeing the lowest common denominator. This is something I've wished

I think the point is to discover new information, but by restricting the set to prevent only seeing the lowest common denominator. This is something I've wished for many times. There are lots of items and people on HN I find interesting, however there is also a lot of startup group think, Silicon Valley groupies and blogosphere wars (Hi TechCrunch!), which, frankly I couldn't care less about and tends to clutter up the front page. The ability to somewhat restrict new information to people I consider valuable seems useful to me.