As with all online communities HN is suffering from it's increased popularity. If you remember how Reddit was a good 10 years back, on every thread there would

As with all online communities HN is suffering from it's increased popularity. If you remember how Reddit was a good 10 years back, on every thread there would be 1-2 actual experts posting substantiated and well-sourced commentary on news relevant to their field. Usually undergraduates and young professionals passionate about their field. At some point this was discovered by journalists and for a brief period of time major news organizations would rely on reddit users for sources. Many if not most discussions would be done in good faith or at least with solid arguments. The userbase was usually 18+. As it got more popular it got worse, mainly because of the "eternal september", altering userbase due to smartphone proliferation and changes in ranking algorithms and business model. HN is not the same as reddit and isn't doomed to the same faults, but as as a forum gets more popular, experts reduce in percentage, they're more reluctant and careful on what and how they comment, the "populism" of the voting system becomes harmful and all the attention creates financial incentives for bad actors. As for using it as some kind of blackbox betting algorithm for startups and trends, that's just a bad idea. I'm certain that you will get the same graph structure for all things that never became popular. Obviously any forum focused on leading edge technologies will discuss advancements long before they become a subject of interest in the general populace. But they'll also discuss everything that will fail or never reach the mainstream sphere.