Well, obviously posts/discussions like this can actually be contributing to the "problem" as some see it, but I'll make one point I don't see made here. For me

Well, obviously posts/discussions like this can actually be contributing to the "problem" as some see it, but I'll make one point I don't see made here. For me personally, I've learned a lot and grown a lot over the course of the 4 years I've been lurking and occasionally contributing here. So for me, a smaller percentage of the stories/articles/posts/discussions appear as insightful as they once did. I don't mean to knock HN in any way, in fact my point is that that fact is not a "problem" to me. New users are joining everyday and everybody who makes the effort to learn and contribute gets something out of HN. It's what brings me back 17 times a day.