It's social media. It's not a news aggregator. People post things they want to talk about. It just happens to be largely links (but not always; for example Ask

It's social media. It's not a news aggregator. People post things they want to talk about. It just happens to be largely links (but not always; for example AskHN). Let's do a quick test. Do you consider Reddit to be social media? How about Twitter? If you do, then so is Hacker News. Just because you it happens to be a social media site that you personally like doesn't mean it gets to be in a different category that you consider more holy. Or just because there's no photos or because there's fewer features, doesn't mean it's not social media.