That was my first instinct but I'm not sure it's actually true. If my priority is to know about interesting topics so I can be informed on them when they take

That was my first instinct but I'm not sure it's actually true. If my priority is to know about interesting topics so I can be informed on them when they take off then this is the right methodology. HN might be a bit inefficient in time, but this suggests that new tech trends will generally not arrive without having had some advance warning on HN. This is what I need - as a consultant it's useful to know what the client is talking about when they bring up something cutting-edge, and useful to know about cutting edge things to recommend as relevant.