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> The general climate here has turned pretty hostile to startups since then. The prevailing advice here is now to land a FAAMG job and slack off with a high sta

> The general climate here has turned pretty hostile to startups since then. The prevailing advice here is now to land a FAAMG job and slack off with a high standard of living Some times I stumble upon really old HN threads in Google searches and end up missing the quality of old HN discourse. It was never perfect, of course. Nor is the modern version without upsides, as there are often good pieces of wisdom if you sift through enough noise in the comments. However, modern HN just feels so deeply cynical, angry, and negative with much less of the entrepreneurial tech optimism of the older posts. It’s also starting to feel weirdly disconnected from reality in the way that the extremes of Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook have become echo chambers after consuming non-stop bad news. It’s like people read so many outrage tech stories here that they forget there is an upside to the tech industry. Big Tech hangs in a weird balance where we’re simultaneously supposed to hate and distrust FAANG companies but also at the same time we’re told to seek out FAANG jobs where we can maximize compensation. The key to enjoying HN is to ignore any thread remotely related to politics, FAANG, social media, economics (where the comments are actually just about politics), drugs, or open-source drama. Sadly, the most interesting content links (great blog posts, writings, knowledge, new projects, and so on) generally get fewer upvotes than outrage topics. I try to make a point of actively upvoting the content I want to see here every time I visit.

N1H1L 5y ago
I think we are all older now?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- donaldihunter 5y ago
  Evergreen comment.
6510 5y ago
Politics should be interesting to a programmer if one can write a program or use data to do something useful. (or talk about doing that) You have to force the conversation in that direction. Like for a chemist everything is about chemistry. They know its not but pretending sure makes things a lot more interesting.
schmorptron 5y ago
I haven't been browsing this site for more than like a year, but have found it one of the places on the internet where political discourse seems to be relatively tame and good-faith for the most part. I've also learned a lot from the blog posts you mentioned and really knowledgeable comments on them. Is it really worse now?
- nickff 5y ago
  Yes, it used to be much more optimistic and less cynical.
  - sillysaurusx 5y ago
    As someone who was here since day two of the public launch, I'm not sure how true this is. It's true the conversation has changed, but less cynical? More optimistic? The cynicism and optimism seems to have stayed more or less constant. The quality of conversation is the problem. Luckily, quality tends to bubble to the top, barring manual intervention that occasionally makes a few (few) mistakes. So far. The extremes are true: I've increasingly felt that people here are disconnected from reality in a way not seen in previous years. I'm not quite sure how to put it into words, and it deserves a substantive eloquence beyond my capabilities at the moment.
    - teatree 5y ago
      Are there any places similar to HN on the internet where one can find high quality, non political, non religious, non news conversations?
      - systemvoltage 5y ago
        Head over to lobste.rs, not much activity but it fits your description. HN's political discourse has been quite unpleasant since last couple of years. Used to be quite a gamut of perspectives, now it is completely lopsided.
        5y ago
na85 5y ago
>However, modern HN just feels so deeply cynical, angry, and negative with much less of the entrepreneurial tech optimism of the older posts. It’s also starting to feel weirdly disconnected from reality in the way that the extremes of Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook have become echo chambers after consuming non-stop bad news. It’s like people read so many outrage tech stories here that they forget there is an upside to the tech industry. I dunno, I think the current atmosphere is more closely aligned with the zeitgeist of society writ large than it was previously. That famed entrepreneurial optimism was born of a belief that technology is inherently good, and that startups can change the world. The veil has been lifted and we see that most startups, internet startups in particular, exist to provide lucrative exits for the owners while abusing their users by harvesting data and selling ads. The promise of a tech-led utopia is a hollow farce. It's a facade for the surveillance dystopia that big Internet companies are creating. With every iteration, user experience takes a back seat to developer convenience, and devices are more powerful yet feel sluggish because of the mountains of shitty abstraction layers piled on. The companies that wield inordinate power are giant faceless corporations acting with impunity and whose decisions have no recourse. Being a tech user is an exercise in frustration. The world sucks and Tech is making it worse.
- sillysaurusx 5y ago
  The zeitgeist of society writ large sucks. This has been true in almost every society in almost every era. It's not a happy thing to align oneself with. The bubbles of optimistic outliers are the places that affect society writ large. That's where to be.
  - eropple 5y ago
    And when those optimistic outliers are intended to validate and glorify the folks who are out to sell ads or your data?
    - kortilla 5y ago
      What a boring trope. electric car companies, hardware companies in general, b2b companies, eink, pinephone, etc, etc. These companies come across here every day. If you think everything is about selling user data you aren’t paying attention.
AdrianB1 5y ago
The reduction in optimism may be related to the increased experience with the topics discussed? For example the internet boom of 2000 was caused by hyper-optimism, then people learned to be more moderate and Internet really took off. By comparison, the generation of 2003-2005 was less optimistic, but not in a bad way.
- Iamadog19782364 5y ago
  I don't think it was learning to be more moderate, I think niche communities were pervaded with new users, which in turn caused a shift in culture and therefore later developed into new moderation policy. It's also been heavily corporatized as well, there are far less distal independent entities being a "big deal" and more centralization. But I haven't studied the patterns extensively and this is just collective anecdotal assessments of the shifts experienced from 2004 to present.
teatree 5y ago
So, is there another place on Internet which is better than HN?
ethelward 5y ago
> However, modern HN just feels so deeply cynical, angry, and negative with much less of the entrepreneurial tech optimism of the older posts Isn't that a direct reflection of the current state of the tech world? Since the 00's, it has morphed from a rather hacker-friendly, digital far-west into a locked-down plutocracy dominated by a handful of gigantic corporations, whose end-goal are quite often to squeeze every single last bit of personal information or other valuable commodity they can out of, typically, misinformed users. E.g., despite all the folklore, I feel much better toward 00's ‶Linux is cancer″ MS and their Windows 2000 than toward 2020's ‶We <3 Linux″ MS that just spy on me through Windows 10 and put ads in my start menu. Similarly, I prefer the 90's ‶we're making expensive and original computers″ Apple to the 2020's ‶we will scan all the photos on your device″ Apple. And it's not to single these two out, they're just the first examples I'm thinking of. All in all, I just believe the whole digital world is much more hostile now than it used to be, which would, at least partially, account for the growing apathy, cynicism and defiance in the community – it's hard to feel any different when every other week brings a new personal data leak, spyware scandal or privacy-infringement affair, be it corporate- or state-sponsored.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  Startup life is considered slavery by HN demographics, so the possibility of upending Big Tech is not even up for discussion anymore. It's difficult to not feel resentful.
  - eitland 5y ago
    I don't think this is completely true. What HNers often complain about is companies that run "cargo cult" start ups, pretend to be "family" but only one way. I've been here since at least 2009 according to ny profile.
  - ethelward 5y ago
    I'd say that life at startups paying peanuts and expecting rockstars is considered slavery, not startup life in general.
kilroy123 5y ago
My account is now older than a decade so I guess I'm an OG here. (crazy) There's definitely been a big shift over the years. But, I feel like this is just the general state of the world right now. The entire industry back then was so much more optimistic. Personally, I only browser: https://news.ycombinator.com/classic https://news.ycombinator.com/classic
orhmeh09 5y ago
Not everyone is the same as you. I enjoy immensely reading HN posts and comments related to politics, FAANG, social media, economics (where the comments are actually just about politics), drugs, or open-source drama. I also like interesting content links (great blog posts, writings, knowledge, new projects, and so on). I don’t get this mix elsewhere and it’s why I come here. Are you in the right community?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bartimus 5y ago
Or we're just getting older. Software tech has become less of a disruptive novelty. Younger generations are entering the scene with different ideals. They desire meaningful capitalism (in a political sense). This also brings new opportunities.

N1H1L 5y ago

I think we are all older now?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
donaldihunter 5y ago
Evergreen comment.

6510 5y ago

Politics should be interesting to a programmer if one can write a program or use data to do something useful. (or talk about doing that) You have to force the conversation in that direction. Like for a chemist everything is about chemistry. They know its not but pretending sure makes things a lot more interesting.

schmorptron 5y ago

I haven't been browsing this site for more than like a year, but have found it one of the places on the internet where political discourse seems to be relatively tame and good-faith for the most part. I've also learned a lot from the blog posts you mentioned and really knowledgeable comments on them. Is it really worse now?

nickff 5y ago
Yes, it used to be much more optimistic and less cynical.
- sillysaurusx 5y ago
  As someone who was here since day two of the public launch, I'm not sure how true this is. It's true the conversation has changed, but less cynical? More optimistic? The cynicism and optimism seems to have stayed more or less constant. The quality of conversation is the problem. Luckily, quality tends to bubble to the top, barring manual intervention that occasionally makes a few (few) mistakes. So far. The extremes are true: I've increasingly felt that people here are disconnected from reality in a way not seen in previous years. I'm not quite sure how to put it into words, and it deserves a substantive eloquence beyond my capabilities at the moment.
  - teatree 5y ago
    Are there any places similar to HN on the internet where one can find high quality, non political, non religious, non news conversations?
    - systemvoltage 5y ago
      Head over to lobste.rs, not much activity but it fits your description. HN's political discourse has been quite unpleasant since last couple of years. Used to be quite a gamut of perspectives, now it is completely lopsided.
      - 5y ago

na85 5y ago

>However, modern HN just feels so deeply cynical, angry, and negative with much less of the entrepreneurial tech optimism of the older posts. It’s also starting to feel weirdly disconnected from reality in the way that the extremes of Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook have become echo chambers after consuming non-stop bad news. It’s like people read so many outrage tech stories here that they forget there is an upside to the tech industry. I dunno, I think the current atmosphere is more closely aligned with the zeitgeist of society writ large than it was previously. That famed entrepreneurial optimism was born of a belief that technology is inherently good, and that startups can change the world. The veil has been lifted and we see that most startups, internet startups in particular, exist to provide lucrative exits for the owners while abusing their users by harvesting data and selling ads. The promise of a tech-led utopia is a hollow farce. It's a facade for the surveillance dystopia that big Internet companies are creating. With every iteration, user experience takes a back seat to developer convenience, and devices are more powerful yet feel sluggish because of the mountains of shitty abstraction layers piled on. The companies that wield inordinate power are giant faceless corporations acting with impunity and whose decisions have no recourse. Being a tech user is an exercise in frustration. The world sucks and Tech is making it worse.

sillysaurusx 5y ago
The zeitgeist of society writ large sucks. This has been true in almost every society in almost every era. It's not a happy thing to align oneself with. The bubbles of optimistic outliers are the places that affect society writ large. That's where to be.
- eropple 5y ago
  And when those optimistic outliers are intended to validate and glorify the folks who are out to sell ads or your data?
  - kortilla 5y ago
    What a boring trope. electric car companies, hardware companies in general, b2b companies, eink, pinephone, etc, etc. These companies come across here every day. If you think everything is about selling user data you aren’t paying attention.

AdrianB1 5y ago

The reduction in optimism may be related to the increased experience with the topics discussed? For example the internet boom of 2000 was caused by hyper-optimism, then people learned to be more moderate and Internet really took off. By comparison, the generation of 2003-2005 was less optimistic, but not in a bad way.

Iamadog19782364 5y ago
I don't think it was learning to be more moderate, I think niche communities were pervaded with new users, which in turn caused a shift in culture and therefore later developed into new moderation policy. It's also been heavily corporatized as well, there are far less distal independent entities being a "big deal" and more centralization. But I haven't studied the patterns extensively and this is just collective anecdotal assessments of the shifts experienced from 2004 to present.

teatree 5y ago

So, is there another place on Internet which is better than HN?

ethelward 5y ago

> However, modern HN just feels so deeply cynical, angry, and negative with much less of the entrepreneurial tech optimism of the older posts Isn't that a direct reflection of the current state of the tech world? Since the 00's, it has morphed from a rather hacker-friendly, digital far-west into a locked-down plutocracy dominated by a handful of gigantic corporations, whose end-goal are quite often to squeeze every single last bit of personal information or other valuable commodity they can out of, typically, misinformed users. E.g., despite all the folklore, I feel much better toward 00's ‶Linux is cancer″ MS and their Windows 2000 than toward 2020's ‶We <3 Linux″ MS that just spy on me through Windows 10 and put ads in my start menu. Similarly, I prefer the 90's ‶we're making expensive and original computers″ Apple to the 2020's ‶we will scan all the photos on your device″ Apple. And it's not to single these two out, they're just the first examples I'm thinking of. All in all, I just believe the whole digital world is much more hostile now than it used to be, which would, at least partially, account for the growing apathy, cynicism and defiance in the community – it's hard to feel any different when every other week brings a new personal data leak, spyware scandal or privacy-infringement affair, be it corporate- or state-sponsored.

systemvoltage 5y ago
Startup life is considered slavery by HN demographics, so the possibility of upending Big Tech is not even up for discussion anymore. It's difficult to not feel resentful.
- eitland 5y ago
  I don't think this is completely true. What HNers often complain about is companies that run "cargo cult" start ups, pretend to be "family" but only one way. I've been here since at least 2009 according to ny profile.
- ethelward 5y ago
  I'd say that life at startups paying peanuts and expecting rockstars is considered slavery, not startup life in general.

kilroy123 5y ago

My account is now older than a decade so I guess I'm an OG here. (crazy) There's definitely been a big shift over the years. But, I feel like this is just the general state of the world right now. The entire industry back then was so much more optimistic. Personally, I only browser: https://news.ycombinator.com/classic https://news.ycombinator.com/classic

orhmeh09 5y ago

Not everyone is the same as you. I enjoy immensely reading HN posts and comments related to politics, FAANG, social media, economics (where the comments are actually just about politics), drugs, or open-source drama. I also like interesting content links (great blog posts, writings, knowledge, new projects, and so on). I don’t get this mix elsewhere and it’s why I come here. Are you in the right community?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

bartimus 5y ago

Or we're just getting older. Software tech has become less of a disruptive novelty. Younger generations are entering the scene with different ideals. They desire meaningful capitalism (in a political sense). This also brings new opportunities.