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It's weird that most of “Hacker” news is dominated by business news

• gandutraveler 5y ago
  Engineering especially software just like DJing used to be for geeks. That's no longer the case, now it's become hip. Thanks to how easy it is to pick up coding these days. Look at the founders background at YC companies shift over the years. The issue is when there is lack of forums for geeks, we as a society stop innovating.
• irrational 5y ago
  It’s the cycle of life. At one time slashdot was where all the technical people hung out. I’m sure a new place will replace HN at some future date.
• newbamboo 5y ago
  Programmers aren’t interested in the same programming related topics because everyone is too specialized now. The topics I’d be interested in would be boring to someone else, etc. aside from stuff about elixir which we all geek out on. So general tech topics like dunking on Facebook/apple/surveillance tech and complaining about leetcode job interview headaches get much traction.
  • prawn 5y ago
    This is probably the main explanation, I agree. There are countless programming languages and storage methods and so on, 99% of which aren't really of interest to me. I use one long-out-of-fashion programming language only ever mentioned as a punchline, and one non-trendy database. Broader topics usually are of interest to me, and tech-adjacent or societal things relevant worldwide like approaches to housing, homelessness, how we use the environment, developments in growing/selling food (robot restaurants).
  • dalmo3 5y ago
    As a relatively new user, at first I was curious about every topic but over time I learned to avoid "I built an AI GPU Compiler in Rust" threads because the whole discussion goes way over my head.
• dang 5y ago
  I missed this thread completely, but these perceptions have basically been around as long as HN has. I don't believe the community is less technical than it used to be; if anything, the opposite, actually. If you or anyone wants to see more posts of type X, the best thing to do is to find interesting links of type X and submit them.
• adultSwim 5y ago
  I keep coming back to HN because of the informed commentary. I commonly see principal actors comment directly, as well as experts with direct relevant experience. I do think the worldview of commenters is a bit monolithic.
• patrickwiseman 5y ago
  To be honest I think this happens naturally and it's fine. The median age in the community feels older and more folks are working in management and business roles. Interests in a community ebb and flow in relation to what folks are working on these days.
• krigath 5y ago
  There's also the argument that business and technology is "the same thing" now. A majority of businesses cannot operate without technology. Technology often does not come to fruition without business.
• detaro 5y ago
  go to /new and upvote the stuff you want to see more of. Surprisingly few people seem to do so, and early voting has quite an effect.
  • krapp 5y ago
    Also under lists in the bottom bar, the second chance pool[0] and invited reposts list[1]. Also, obviously, it's better to post more of the kind of content you want to see, rather than complain about the content you don't like. Also, remember that leaving a comment (even a thoughtful one) without also leaving an upvote acts as an implicit downvote and will eventually trigger the flamewar detector in a thread. It's entirely possible a lot of technical threads get sunk because they simply generate technical conversation but not enough kudos. [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/pool https://news.ycombinator.com/pool [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/invited https://news.ycombinator.com/invited
    • gus_massa 5y ago
      > Also, remember that leaving a comment (even a thoughtful one) without also leaving an upvote acts as an implicit downvote and will eventually trigger the flamewar detector in a thread. This happens if the post has at least 20 or 40 comments (I don't remember the number now). Most post in https://news.ycombinator.com/newest https://news.ycombinator.com/newest die with no of very few comments and upvotes, so most of the times it's not bad to add a comment to an obscure post. Sometimes a post is not good enough for upvoting, but it looks promising and the author may have some interesting insight.
  • FridayoLeary 5y ago
    The first half-hour is crucial. The continued success of your post is generally defined by reaching (and staying on) the front page.
    • OJFord 5y ago
      Yeah, and not for any mysterious or secret reason either - new is sorted by time, and front by .. ok that's a bit mysterious and secret, but some function of points, comments, time, views, clicks, etc. So, roughly speaking, you have until another full page's worth of new comes in to get enough engagement to rank in the front two or three pages.
• mindcrime 5y ago
  Funny, I'd say there's less, no, a LOT less, startup / business oriented discussion here than in the past. To me, the big thing that has emerged over the past few years has been a lot more "stuff" that can loosely be described as "politics / culture / public policy / society" or whatever. And if I could wave a magic wand and change anything, I'd ban that stuff. Because I agree, "I'd like to see conversations about software, hardware, computer science, and hacker culture resurge and dominate here" That said, there is still a lot of that stuff. But the proportion of various topics have definitely shifted over the years.
  • Thorentis 5y ago
    These types of articles are actually what kept me here. The unique blend of comp sci, and socio-political-economic-whatever discussions is fantastic.
    • jolux 5y ago
      I really think it makes the site worse. I’m already an avid Twitter user, I come to Hacker News for discussions and content that I couldn’t find anywhere else. The political discourse on here is just lower-quality and less interesting than on Twitter.
      • LordDragonfang 5y ago
        If you think the discourse here is lower quality than on twitter, I'd really like to know how you're curating your twitter feed.
        • jolux 5y ago
          Aggressively. I'm constantly following new people and unfollowing loads of other people. I try to keep a good mix of tech, music, and philosophy in with all the policy and politics. I also liberally mute and block. Only way to make it usable, but the result is far better than political discourse on Hacker News.
• yellow_lead 5y ago
  I think people want to browse HN and not have to put much mental effort in, so more "news" articles are upvoted, commented on, etc.
  • krapp 5y ago
    Most people here don't read the articles, so there isn't much mental effort being put in either way.
    • Kaibeezy 5y ago
      I think people do read the articles. For a while, I was adding a reply to most of my posts where I pulled in a key bit of the article and maybe made a brief comment. I thought this would be a good way to encourage discussion, but I was advised it could also steer the discussion, so probably better to keep it to a minimum. This I did, and while fewer posts gain critical mass without that condensation nucleus, it’s clear my best posts usually do end up going somewhere really interesting, and that the articles are definitely being read.
  • the_lonely_road 5y ago
    I’m not interested in rust, or elixer, or Python or…the list keeps going and is much longer than the list of tech I am interested in. This means I’m unlikely to even grep the title of articles about some keyword specific to them let alone engage with them. I would assume a large number of if not a majority of tech readers are in the same boat. Better believe I’m clicking on any Ruby related articles and probably engaging further as well. Most people here are probably skipping over those same articles I’m engaging with. An article about Iran or Google is probably going to pull a big audience simply because it’s relevant to a wide audience of the readers here.
• okdjnfweonfe 5y ago
  its "hacker" as in "hacker is a cool word"
• GaryTang 5y ago
  I’d say the opposite is true. Additionally, it is much MUCH easier to find tech communities to have a discussion as compared to business-oriented communities.
• randycupertino 5y ago
  I post articles and deep-reads that I personally find interesting from all ranges of topics. I like hackernews because of the discussions and the comments. Personally, I think the diversity of threads here is an asset. There was a front-page thread here on Ham Radio yesterday which I know nothing about but reading through the comments was fascinating! Agree that sorting by /new and upvoting the content you like is hugely helpful.
• MerelyMortal 5y ago
  Before my time, but HN was originally called "Startup News" which is more-or-less business.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• kulshan 5y ago
  I can't say I agree...look at the top 60 links currently. How many would you say are "business news"?
• jaytaylor 5y ago
  Try lobste.rs ( https://lobste.rs https://lobste.rs ) if you want "real" hacker news. They punish non-technical submissions.
  • fersarr 5y ago
    Looks cool! hmm would you invite me? :)
  • hackpert 5y ago
    Ooh good recommendation, lobste.rs is cool. I've been looking for someone with a potential invite for a while too if anyone here is offering :).
  • wizeman 5y ago
    I love lobste.rs too, an invite would also be appreciated!
  • andrekandre 5y ago
    yea definitely would love an invite there too ^^
  • corobo 5y ago
    They also appear to have no comments (maybe it's a bad day for it, sunday?) I'm here probably 20% for the link, 80% for the discussion
  • huwnang 5y ago
    I never realized I wasn’t the only oddball who had so little connection with other computer people that they didn’t know anyone to let them into lobste.rs.
• darthvoldemort 5y ago
  HN is HN. It ebbs and flows like the tide. I love HN for what it is, a news feed of interesting articles, with a bias towards technology but not always. I've been introduced to so many things because of the wide range of articles that are fascinating to like-minded people. > I'd like to see conversations about software, hardware, computer science, and hacker culture resurge and dominate here. Feel free to upvote the articles that you enjoy. But forcing HN to only be about the above would probably lead to its demise.
• ksec 5y ago
  This is strange, are we even reading the same front page? ( I am pretty sure HN dont have personalised front page ) I just ran through the first 100 Front page times and there are barely any business related news. I also dont see how the community here sometimes tilts more towards business than technology. Other than some rare news on another Unicorn, Public Listing, earning from FAANG. There has rarely been any business news on HN at all. There are some economics news ( if you count them as business news ), but are again in the minorities. YC backed start up Jobs are only shown may be once per day. They are more like ads on HN. Who is hiring is also only a monthly posting. I am actually in flavour of more business news, but I also think the current balance seems to be fine.
  • hobofan 5y ago
    You are right, as of the moment of writing this, there is next to no "business news" on the FP right now. Anecdotally, I would claim that there is a lot more non-tech content during the week, and mostly tech content on the weekends (see for yourself via the "past" link at the top).
    • ksec 5y ago
      I think it is fair to say, non-tech / business / economics / stocks ( and as well as politics ) etc tends to get more during the week because that is how the news and PR cycle works. i.e Business aren't going to publish their quarterly results during weekends, economics forecast etc get there by mid week ( Monday is never a good to start PR ). So may be if you only ever go on HN during weekdays, the amount of business entries could be a little higher, but generally speaking I still believe HN aren't anywhere business focus at all. ( If it was I wouldn't have to rant about Supply Chain and Operation management every time the topic comes up )
• smitty1e 5y ago
  What intrigues me is that the "Hackers", who care about state, programs, and process, haven't turned attention to the State, and set about un-jacking its programs and streamlining its process. Why haven't we got a robust git server with anonymous read-only access for everyone who pays taxes that holds all (unclassified) legislation/regulation affecting society? Commits would be possible for elected officials/appointees only. Similarly transparent treatment for the tax code. Come on, Hackers: let's beat the entropy out of (or at least minimize it) in the res publica.
  • int_19h 5y ago
    If the elected officials & appointees actually cared for something like this, it would have existed already. Ultimately, the problem is that the "res publica" is not actually for the public. The whole premise that a single person can meaningfully "represent" millions is so laughable, I don't know why we keep pretending it's actually democratic.
    • krapp 5y ago
      >The whole premise that a single person can meaningfully "represent" millions is so laughable, I don't know why we keep pretending it's actually democratic. What does "meaningfully" mean, in this context?
      • int_19h 5y ago
        It means that votes taken by the representative actually advance the specific interests of their constituents. The problem is that, for this to be the case, constituents must have a working communication channel. But when you have a single representative ostensibly speaking for millions (or even tens of thousands) of people, any such channel is quickly overwhelmed, and becomes mostly a token thing. Council democracy tries to solve it by ensuring that, at every level, each delegate speaks for a relatively small group of people - small enough that it can regularly assemble to keep the delegate under control at all times.
    • smitty1e 5y ago
• tdeck 5y ago
  Had the same thought when Rent the Runway's IPO was on the front page. They're not even a tech company.
  • randycupertino 5y ago
    I'd argue they're a tech company as much as Uber, WeWork, or Airbnb. Rent the runway uses a website and programming to monitor their logistics, inventory, implement designer looks each season and AI to learn user's preferences and suggest new looks to recommend to them for certain events. Their "stylists" are really just machine learning suggestions. Would you disqualify Uber as a tech co, saying they're just a taxi co? Kinda same umbrella, imo.
• raxi 5y ago
  If only business news. A few months ago HN was flooded with articles about Navalny. There is quite a lot of this kind of political spam, from different countries.
• oblib 5y ago
  There's a lot of stuff here about software that doesn't make the front page. I tend to scan the front page first and then go look at what's in the "new" section. There's a lot of good stuff there that doesn't generate a lot of comments that I follow the links provided. I'll come back and leave a comment on some of those. But by the time I do they may be a page or two deeper and not much makes the front page if they haven't already by that point. A later post on the same subject might make the front page though. I've seen that happen a lot here. That said, there's still a lot here about "software, hardware, computer science". As far as "hacker culture" goes I'm not really sure what that is.
  • mattowen_uk 5y ago
    I do this too. If there was a simple enhancement I'd like to see to HN, extending how far back you can go on /new, /ask and /show would be it. /show is currently capping out at only 41 entries, and /ask is 61. Looking at them both it seems the cut off is -48 hours. Extending this to 72 hours would be trivial and prevent older posts ageing off too quick - not everyone looks at those pages every day. I'm hoping dang has this on his long list of to-do items!
• amelius 5y ago
  Yes. Posts like "How to make $1 million with embarrassingly little work" are always going to make it to the HN frontpage. Which makes me wonder. Are we here to discuss technology? Or are we here to daydream how we get rich while sleeping? Also the "hackers" on HN are increasingly buying systems that are built to resist hacking and that have a target audience that can be described as "mom, dad and grandparents". Something feels not right.
  • 0des 5y ago
    This is a website run by a venture capitalist org, ycombinator.
    • amelius 5y ago
      Yes, and they called it "hacker news".
      • 0des 5y ago
        Believe it or not, at the time, the term had a different connotation
      • throw_m239339 5y ago
        I always thought is was about "growth hacking"? No?
        • desas 5y ago
          Nope. I'm not sure that growth hacking was even a term then. It refers to hacking as in messing about with technology to do exciting, fun, unexpected or novel things
      • Semiapies 5y ago
        And it was almost called "Startup News".
        • 5y ago
• tomc1985 5y ago
  There is an alternate defintion of hacker, that of the "startup hacker" or "growth hacker," that this site seems to follow more closely. Disappointing, for sure.
  • birtoise 5y ago
    Yeah. It is less of a “roots” definition of hacker and more of a “how can I hack the system to get rich with technology”.
    • drfxyjhdyfrhgc 5y ago
      >To the popular press, "hacker" means someone who breaks into computers. Among programmers it means a good programmer. But the two meanings are connected. To programmers, "hacker" connotes mastery in the most literal sense: someone who can make a computer do what he wants—whether the computer wants to or not. [0] [0] http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html
• cushychicken 5y ago
  You might enjoy lobste.rs more for straight tech content.
  • blondin 5y ago
    you don't happen to have a spare invite? it still works on invite right?
    • cushychicken 5y ago
      Anyone can view. Need an invite to post. I just lurk.
• personjerry 5y ago
  FYI, these are guidelines for "on-topic" for HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• dougmwne 5y ago
  I think it may be time for a userbase fork. All the politics, policy and economic, and general business news to one side, all the hardware, software, science, startup, and tech business news to the other.
  • geon 5y ago
    So you want subhackernewses? Like /h/business ?
    • ItsMonkk 5y ago
      No, don't group by content - group by people. Let the people decide which group they want to discuss things with. Going from subreddit to subreddit where each one has its own community only breeds anonymous behaviour - toxicity. What you ultimately want to do is find the ~1k people that want to discuss the things that you want to discuss.
    • 30minAdayHN 5y ago
      i actually like this idea, but would be hard to execute as comments might intermix them
  • djur 5y ago
    I don't want to read about startups and I do want to read technology-related political news (I have other sources for non-technology political news). I'd rather skim past the things I'm not interested in on a single site than two.
  • z3phyr 5y ago
    IMO Startup and Tech Business come in the first category.
• jiggawatts 5y ago
  Something I noticed about Slashdot was that it started out talking about the latest processors, software, and Linux kernel patches. Then the conversation ever-so-slowly started drifting towards CEOs, the sharemarket, politics, and the like. It's a side-effect of an aging user base. Young people get excited about New Things! With big numbers! Older people get bored of the latest technological advancements and instead become interested in whether Zuckerberg will get dethroned or not.
  • Justsignedup 5y ago
    I genuinely wonder if HN has been stagnant with the same people visiting it as 5 years ago. And thus your statement is accurate.
    • datameta 5y ago
      Surely with the influx of people early in the pandemic this isn't the case?
      • 1_player 5y ago
        Why would the pandemic send more users to HN?
        • asdff 5y ago
          at home unsupervised browsing during working hours versus working in a cubicle, or god forbid, an open concept office, where bossman patrols the hallways like a prison guard.
        • datameta 5y ago
          I think there was a large migration of users onto all sorts of forums and social networks everywhere.
  • chrispeel 5y ago
    > Older people get bored of the latest technological advancements and instead become interested in whether Zuckerberg will get dethroned or not. As I age I am less interested in business topics, and more interested in technological advancements
• wintermutestwin 5y ago
  Seems like a trivial solution to include a mechanism for categorization. Good ole Slashdot has had this forever...
• mberning 5y ago
  It is a stark contrast to 5 years ago.
• yourad_io 5y ago
  Not saying it doesn't at times but right now this was #23 on my front page and it was the first business referencing submission. Everything else was tech stuff / OSS and a 99% invisible post.
• leepowers 5y ago
  Hmmm...Maybe I just tune out the business stuff, but I mostly see topics relating to programming, science, and technology, with a smattering of pure business stuff and product/startup announcements. I think this may be a taxonomic problem. Consider this topic: > Facebook's own data is not as conclusive about teens and mental health [1] The article is about Facebook, so its definitely a business article. But it also an article on technology and society, and about the science that describes how social media consumption effects mental health. HN would lose something if it focused purely on technology. While its essential to understand how technology works, and what changes are on the horizon, the beauty of HN is it also explores how science and technology interconnect with business, government, society, culture, etc. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28813041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28813041
• worker767424 5y ago
  I'm not sure if it's changed or not, but use this as an observation as a reminder that technology is more interesting when it does something for people, otherwise it's an academic exercise.
• concinds 5y ago
  I think as reddit continued to decline, more people here became interested in debating politics, societal stuff since there was no other "serious" place for it. I wish some of that stuff wasn't here, since it takes away from discussions in other threads. But (and I hope dang sees this) occasionally when HN "strays" away from tech it's absolutely brilliant. There's tons of discussion here on some health issues, diets, stuff like that, where I would never have found such good discussion (even the anecdotal evidence is interesting and useful) and where you can really walk away being better off from having read it. If that means tolerating the occasional thread about how appropriate politics is in the workplace, or how bad everything is for mental health, I'm more than happy to keep coming back here for that. edit: by the way, I'd be quite interested in what a thread like this posted 8 years ago would look like. Wouldn't be surprised if people were saying this website was "going downhill" too back then. I think as long as the 12-18 only-cares-about-memes demographic stays on reddit, HN will stay just fine.
  • jml7c5 5y ago
    >But (and I hope dang sees this) occasionally when HN "strays" away from tech it's absolutely brilliant. There's tons of discussion here on some health issues, diets, stuff like that I've found the opposite. While there is enough knowledge about computing to keep the discussion informed and aligned with reality, outside that field we're mostly laymen. See the various UFO threads, the peculiar support for Wim Hof, the contentious COVID discussions... The health discussions in particular remind me a lot like the enthusiasm for polyphasic sleep 10-15 years ago, or the more recent enthusiasm for microdosing LSD.
    • concinds 5y ago
      Well, I love Wim Hof breathing (and it helped me when I had Covid, and helps with HRV and energy levels), and now take Vitamin D, glycine, Zinc, and other stuff that seemed to help me a lot. On top of that, if you've ever dealt with any chronic illness (GERD in my case), you'll find the wealth of anecdotal, n=1 info posted in HN comments is much, much more helpful than anything you'd find anywhere else. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. There are some discussions you could have on reddit, or any other site, but the discussion quality would be 5-10% what it would be here, simply because of the different audience. People here tend to have more life experience, and I'm grateful for the scraps of wisdom that get shared in non-tech conversations here.
• hooande 5y ago
  You can do an analysis of this, you don't have to rely on personal impressions. Download representative samples of the top hn posts over time. Use open source or free sample tools to classify the text of posts or titles and see how that has changed. You could even do a write up on the experience If you think we don't talk about hacking enough, then give us something to talk about
  • tppiotrowski 5y ago
    I agree. Personal impressions are heavily influenced by mood.
• everyone 5y ago
  Look at the url 'ycombinator'. It's some kind of silicon valley tech-bro MLM I think.
• adenozine 5y ago
  Hacker News is essentially entertainment. Nothing here is accurate, most voices are not speaking from experience but a sort of caricature role-playing. There are occasionally helpful resources, all the same. There was a thread a few months back maybe of a list of different blog authors in various tech fields. If you want high-quality, informed, well-written news, you gotta curate it yourself.
• AncoraImparo 5y ago
  Hackernews hasn't been hacker news since 2015, when it started being about the books bill gates is reading, or what Elon Musk had for breakfast. It's vanity fair for nerds.
• wly_cdgr 5y ago
  This is the social media arm of a for-profit startup incubator business. The "hacker" is just corny branding, man
  • sneak 5y ago
    Your first sentence is true and relevant. Your second is, in a certain light, false (and a bit mean). pg is definitely a hacker in the traditional sense, and much of the stuff posted here is on topic for hackers in the TMRC sense. The shift in the last few decades is that hacking is now a thing that can result in becoming an accidental millionaire. That's going to have societal and cultural effects on the community, like it or not.
    • readable 5y ago
      PG made a second rate e-commerce site and sold it to the most gullible company in the world (Yahoo!). He’s never been anything close to what would be considered a “hacker”. This site’s purpose has always been to shill for YC investments. Sometimes there tech talk that occurs but it’s not the reason HN exists.
• twirlock 5y ago
  It's dominated by mainstream, intelligentsia-approved narratives.
  • 0des 5y ago
    It has homogenized a bit, but perhaps this is why more contrary opinions need to speak up. I find myself often reading an interesting exchange that ends in a squinty grey section of text, and I sit there for a moment, frustrated, and trying to figure out what the dissenters downvoting see that I don't. Perhaps more well-reasoned rebuttals would be what HN needs to bring some of the old flavor back. Before you ignore me and pass on, I've been active here for enough years to remember when you could discuss just about anything and people almost gravitated to a contrarian opinion to figure out how someone could get such a different view. People now seem too quick to downvote with no comment, which in my opinion is a loss for anybody following up after that who is missing that context. It is the conversational equivalent of the person who makes a forum question about an obscure bug that goes on for about 30 replies or so, and then at the end its just the intrepid OP showing up to say "thanks guys its fixed" and nobody has a clue what got fixed or how. To me, this is the laziest form of discourse, and I think it is worsened by people being too comfy in their peer groups and despite advocating for diversity, not valuing diversity of concepts and viewpoints.
• errantmind 5y ago
  It is obvious to anyone who has been here for a while that this community is in decline, in the sense that it has less depth, less quirkiness, and less 'real' diversity of opinion (although dang does a good job of stemming the tide). The 'hivemind' has emerged here to squash contrasting positions. The funny thing is, no one thinks they are a part of this emergent 'hivemind' but the end result is the same.
  • conductr 5y ago
    I think it has more to do with discourse in general declining and HN isn’t immune but it explains why no one thinks they’re a part of it
  • newsbinator 5y ago
    I’m guessing the hive mind largely lurks and doesn’t post or comment.
    • emerged 5y ago
      I read daily but rarely feel compelled to comment. Those relatively rare comments also rarely receive an up or down vote. I’m generally amazed how often the more prolific posters comment.
  • no_time 5y ago
    Saying community is in constant decline is such an internet thing. A certain other website with a blue background and trumpets has been full of messages like this for the last 20 years, yet it's still a fun place to lurk. HN is one of the few places on the internet where you can play devil's advocate and still live to see the top of the comments page because the number of people who read half sentences and instantly flag/downvote is very low. I think this is one of the biggest things setting it apart from Reddit.
    • kkoncevicius 5y ago
      > Saying community is in constant decline is such an internet thing. A certain other website with a blue background and trumpets has been full of messages like this for the last 20 years, yet it's still a fun place to lurk. But repeatedly saying that something is in decline doesn't mean that there is no decline. Also something can be in decline and still remain a fun place for a long time. Both can be true at the same time.
• danbmil99 5y ago
  HN it seems to me is very targeted towards the things that hackers are interested in, which is of course technical content but not exclusively.
• throw_m239339 5y ago
  I wish it was more business (and tech) news oriented. All I see lately is a lot of culture war, partisanship, 'intersectionality' and other things they were rarer before the Trump era. I remember a time when people were getting downvoted for suggesting that maybe, Airbnb and Uber should follow local laws, fast forward 5 years and it's a cultural battlefield... I miss the time when we were just yelling at each other over the use of singletons, or whether POST or PUT were idempotent...
• pyrrhotech 5y ago
  Software is becoming less and less of a tech industry and more and more commoditized. Very little innovation in the past 5-10 years. Very few successful companies during that time have come about by having incredibly innovative and novel technology - almost all are simply using run of the mill, commoditized technology to solve business problems that they have large domain knowledge of. Given this, it makes total sense that having detailed esoteric technical knowledge is no longer the path to success in 2021, and ultimately, hacker news has always been predominately about one thing - how to get rich. The best methods have simply shifted over the last 15 years from being a tech genius to being technically-proficient domain knowledge expert
  • 0des 5y ago
    > Very little innovation in the past 5-10 years. That means the time is now! The changes and innovations that we are looking for are being formed right now! I can't wait to see what comes out of all this. Sure the HN community is getting a little homogenized but the creator of the next big thing is likely already here among us, and they're unknowingly depending on us to seed them with the concepts and values that we care about.
  • ToJans 5y ago
    ^^ This comment is spot on; my personal path has evolved from low-level "let's build everything ourselves" to "which components/services/apps can I leverage to serve my clients and get a new feature out in a few days instead of months". We're moving up on the abstraction ladder, and as hacker news has always had an early adopter audience, focus is shifting here first. Assuming these trends are highly correlated with the Kondratieff cycle, I expect a new trend to emerge about a decade from now. My best bet is focus will shift deep into the implementation again, but now in another context (Maybe on edge devices, data/code floating in the void, more decentralized, ...). I've put my money where my mouth is, and my personal bet is on interactive 3D, as 3D capable devices are becoming more of a commodity and the current generation of youth (future buyers) will be a very technically literate audience that has grown up playing games and being connected 24/7. Maybe I should send myself a reminder about this post in 10 years from now; curious to see what will have emerged by then on this site...
• tomhoward 5y ago
  I wonder if you’re affected by the “notice-dislike” bias the dang [1] often talks about? Looking at the front page now, there are zero business news stories. At least 15 (half) are straight tech, and a further 8 are tech or science related. Of the remaining 6, one is about Covid-science, one is about tech-politics, one is about culture, one is a YC job listing, one is about HN 15 years ago and the last one is your complaining that there is not enough tech content here. Sure there’s been a lot of content about Facebook scandals /outages this week, and maybe that’s what you’re focusing on. But there is a “hide” button on each story, so you can always hide all the stuff that doesn’t interest you and just read the tech content, which always makes up more than half the items in the front page. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=By%3Adang%20%22notice%20dislike%22&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
• epberry 5y ago
  I've seen a lot of posts analyzing HN content. This would be a very interesting topic.
• thrower123 5y ago
  I find I have to flag/hide about a third of the front page every time I visit to filter out the really boring dreck. Most of it comes from a couple dozen of domains, like npr, guardian, washpost, nytimes, nature, cbc, cnbc, newyorker, atlantic, etc, which does make the filtering easier. The biggest thing is just that after so many years here, there's very little new to discuss; most topics have been beaten to a bloody pulp, and you know what people are going to say before you even read the comments.
• motoxpro 5y ago
  Fair point, but it's always been this way. It's not new. FWIW, HN is my tech/business news source so I love it the way it is. https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-09 https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-09
• justinzollars 5y ago
  I agree. At least 25% of topics are flame war political posts. If you have the wrong opinion you are downvoted. So it makes the community feel pretty bad. I would like to see a policy change. But I won't hold my breath.
• ed 5y ago
  HN was originally called Startup News, and was for startup founders. You might like lobsters, in addition to HN, which has more of a programming focus and overlaps with the community here a bit https://lobste.rs/ https://lobste.rs/
• rektide 5y ago
  Software & tech got boring & not worthy of discussing when it biggified & cowardly retreated to inside the corporate firewalls. There's a lot less to talk about because it's all much more boring, much more is already on tap and available, much of what hacking is done is boring as heck now, inside the bowels of vast enterprises. The hacker spirit is in jeopardy.
• Proven 5y ago
  [dead]
• tarun_anand 5y ago
  Very surprised to see this post and thread... Actually feeling a bit happy and vindicated. I pointed this out very recently and got downvoted heavily. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28479960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28479960 I still believe that if the thread above can make it to the top then introspection is needed. Peace.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• IdontRememberIt 5y ago
  Adding tags/topics has been a constant requested workaround to allow some filtering since almost the begining of HN. Never understood the rejection. PS: I have always read that it opens mind to other subjects. When I have enough time I agree, but when very busy I would favor some filtering to save precious time.
• swiley 5y ago
  It's PG's toy forum for the CEOs he's investing in. Of course it's dominated by business news.
• mastrsushi 5y ago
  It's the brogrammer echo chamber. They discuss everything and anything the people of silicon valley are interested in.
• TheRealDevonMcC 5y ago
  Maybe it's because you cannot separate things that neatly. I see people here complaining that it's not all about tech but what is tech without the world that we live in and our effect on that world? Without context, tech alone is a very sterile discussion.
• bfung 5y ago
  Business news is fine; as pg once wrote, “ But when you do something so clever that you somehow beat the system, that's also called a hack.” Hacking doesn’t have to be breaking computer stuff, it can also be finding loopholes in business and everyday life and exploiting them. http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html
• fdschoeneman 5y ago
  I do have a similar perception though I would add there is often political stuff that is not of particular interest to me as a hacker.
• iamwil 5y ago
  In the guidelines: "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. "
• howolduis 5y ago
  funny how you see "How Google is protecting our privacy" posts eveyr now and then that makes it to the front page
• cable2600 5y ago
  You have to know what the businesses are doing so you can emulate their success. Also adjust your stock portfolio.
• cmckn 5y ago
  "Hacker" isn't an absolute term. This site is what it is (a community). I think it's bizarre to make an appeal to a dictionary definition in order to shift the culture of said community. If you want to see more of X, Y, or Z, submit it. That's it.
  • adfm 5y ago
    to;dr: no assholes.
• na85 5y ago
  It ebbs and flows. There was a time not so long ago where it seemed like every third article on HN was about yet another JavaScript framework. I'd much rather read about a startup's postmortem than about some monads-as-a-service library releasing version 14.374.299
  • mohanmcgeek 5y ago
    > There was a time not so long ago where it seemed like every third article on HN was about yet another JavaScript framework. I know it feels this way but it was in fact a very long time ago. That was 2011-2012ish IIRC
    • hobofan 5y ago
      It did definitely drag on for far longer than that. 2009-2012 was the time of post-jQuery, with a lot of discourse around better alternatives to that (e.g. underscore.js, backbone.js). React was released in 2013, which sparked a lot of offshoots. Vue came in 2014, and Angular in 2016, which I would say is the earliest point where you could see a significant drop in the activity.
      • mohanmcgeek 5y ago
        IIRC the front-end JavaScript frameworks had considerably less coverage than node.js projects. 2011-2014 was the time everything that could be written in js was written in js. Didn't matter if it was a good idea, I just loved the energy here!
    • na85 5y ago
      Maybe. I lurked for a long while before creating my account in 2012 so that sounds about right.
  • heywintermute 5y ago
    >every third article on HN was about yet another JavaScript framework. Felt like that with articles about Rust as well
• a-dub 5y ago
  to be honest, it seems more dominated by retro-computing and various tech related nostalgia for the over 40 set at the moment. not complaining at all about this, of course.
• dredmorbius 5y ago
  It's possible to go back through history and look at the front page (30 top articals) for any day in the (as of today) past 15 years, beginning 9 October 2006, when Startup News, now Hacker News, first launched as a service to the tech startup sector. A business-oriented site, focusing on the (mostly) high-tech venture scene. 5 years ago today: https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2016-10-09 https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2016-10-09 10 years ago today: https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2011-10-09 https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2011-10-09 15 years ago today: https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-09 https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2006-10-09 A simple shell script will automate URL generation: for i in {5..15..5} do echo "https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=$( date -d "$i years ago" +%Y-%m-%d )" done Using Algolia Search it's possible to select top stories for a longer period of time. Here's results for each of the years 2006, 2011, 2016, and 2021 to date: 2006: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1167523200&dateRange=custom&dateStart=1135987200&page=0&prefix=false&query=&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1167523200&dateRange=custom&... As 2006 is partial, here's 2007 as well: 2007: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1199059200&dateRange=custom&dateStart=1167436800&page=0&prefix=false&query=&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1199059200&dateRange=custom&... 2011: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1325203200&dateRange=custom&dateStart=1293753600&page=0&prefix=false&query=&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1325203200&dateRange=custom&... 2016: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1483142400&dateRange=custom&dateStart=1451520000&page=0&prefix=false&query=&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1483142400&dateRange=custom&... 2021: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1640908800&dateRange=custom&dateStart=1609459200&page=0&prefix=false&query=&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1640908800&dateRange=custom&... As I read it, the top stories from 2007 were ... dominated by business / non-technical topics. Top 10 items: Please tell us what features you'd like in news.ycombinator(http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363) 262 points|pg|15 years ago|1566 comments Finally, voting without refresh(http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html#12jun07) 176 points|pg|14 years ago|42 comments How Not to Die(http://paulgraham.com/die.html) 168 points|subhash|14 years ago|143 comments Why we made this site(http://ycombinator.com/announcingnews.html) 165 points|pg|15 years ago|57 comments Hacker News(http://ycombinator.com/hackernews.html) 150 points|pg|14 years ago|76 comments Holding a program in one's head(http://www.paulgraham.com/head.html) 142 points|eposts|14 years ago|131 comments Code's Worst Enemy(http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/12/codes-worst-enemy.html) 125 points|mqt|14 years ago|41 comments CMU professor gives his last lesson on life(http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07262/818671-85.stm) 121 points|amichail|14 years ago|33 comments Why to Apply to YCombinator 113 points|palish|14 years ago|36 comments Absolutely, DO NOT, get a co-founder! 112 points|BitGeek|14 years ago|86 comments
• kelnos 5y ago
  Commenters here seem to be taking OP's assertion as gospel, but right now the front page has maybe 3 items on it that I'd call "business news".
• rodrigosetti 5y ago
  Because technology is basically business automation. Much less of coding is hobby or science.
• cblconfederate 5y ago
  There was a marked shift many years ago. SV seems to have recruited too many people, so inevitably the discussion shifts to the average worker. It's all about management now, so obscure hacking content will not be upvoted. It has also become too 'corporate' , focused on big tech and funding, and not the indie heroes. The comments have become more personal, in line with the me-culture of the time. This is of course a subjective view coming from my observations that I often learn new management/marketing terms that i shouldn't be learning, being constantly perplexed by the career ladders mentioned, and learning about tools that are useless to anyone but google. Also don't forget the constant shilling about various paid services that are the second coming of christ until the next second coming.
  • tomhoward 5y ago
    This doesn’t really align with the reality. HN’s audience is not heavily concentrated in Silicon Vally or the U.S. - less than 10% of the audience is based around Silicon Valley [1]. Most discussion about Silicon Valley companies, individuals and culture is critical and negative. At any time there are multiple articles about “obscure hacking” topics on the front page. Right now there are 10, by my count - though others may count fewer of course. But when I talk to hacker types about HN, they always comment on the cool obscure articles they find here. All the content can’t always by obscure, can it? Surely if everything is obscure, nothing is. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26916747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26916747
    • cblconfederate 5y ago
      Discussion fora are usually dominated by a minority. You won't read about the habits, diets and anxieties (housing, options, politics, tools, city life, commute) of people from berlin , moscow , paris, melbourne, while you learn the people, areas and streets of SF by name. HN is a megaphone for globalizing the SV culture.
      • achow 5y ago
        Techies from Berlin, Bangalore, Moscow.. come here to live vicariously (SV culture).
• Iv 5y ago
  Because of that I had moved away a few years ago but a friend pointed to me that it is still worthwhile to scan 3 pages of links for the one relevant actual tech bit. Maybe I should check out slashdot again...
  • Iv 5y ago
    Actually Slashdot's articles are more relevant to my interests now!
• tasmin22 5y ago
  Find professional workers for hire that are verified and can get your job done. Hire a professional hacker who is expert in all types of hacking.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• MrDresden 5y ago
  I feel that HN has mostly been a business news site for the last 6 years, and has been trending into a more zeitgeist focused site in the last 2-3. I've fulfilled my need for more technical discussions elsewhere for a while now. One place I've liked is lobsters. edit; I'll add that I've also started seeking out deep technical knowledge about a subject in the official places for the subject in question. For instance, for deep discussions on Kotlin I go for the KEEP and Slack channels.
• Mikho 5y ago
  "Rich people in their free time talk about art. Artists in their free time talk about money."
• kkoncevicius 5y ago
  The biggest drift I noticed is mainstream news articles reaching the front page more frequently. I use and abuse the "hide" functionality, but sometimes I wish there was a setting to hide bbc, reuters, new york times, npr, and the gang - like a "hide" feature for domain names.
• beardedman 5y ago
  Agreed. I think it's probably helped the lobste.rs community.
• beowulfey 5y ago
  Perhaps this goes against most commenters here, but I find HN to be an appropriate mix of both that has not changed much with time. Reading that link of Hacker News from 15 years ago feels little different from what it is today. This contrasts dramatically with the Reddit of 10-15 years ago vs what it is like today. Discussion here is also still very high quality. I find it remarkable.
  • corobo 5y ago
    This sounds bad but mild shame helps keep a community working Any time someone hits out with a pun or whatever comment someone will say "this isn't reddit" and the comment is made hard to read - over time I have to imagine that has helped keep it from becoming reddit Of course I am also burying the lede a bit. Paid and dedicated (I think?) moderators is an absolute key factor too
    • Phileosopher 5y ago
      Paid, not sure, but I've lurked around here enough to verify the dedication. The mods not only curate and consolidate multiple links (e.g., 3+ things that said Facebook was down this last week), but they also openly communicate what they did.
      • rewq4321 5y ago
        Dang is paid, which is obviously part of what gives rise to the dedication. And not that the vast majority of HN moderation is not openly communicated. It's things like score adjustment to push certain type of posts lower and boost others which are deemed to not have gotten enough attention.
• BiteCode_dev 5y ago
  I imagine HN simply sells the front page to PR firms. There is no better ad that the one that seems to be organically showing up in your circle of interest.
• Angostura 5y ago
  Currently, looking at the front page, there is 1 story in the top 20 that is about business - that's about Facebook's business model.
• ceilingcorner 5y ago
  I wouldn’t describe it as business news, more like mainstream news. Over the last six months or so, I have noticed a massive increase in the downvoting of unpopular opinions. Before you had to be deliberately belligerent to get flagged or downvoted. Now it’s more just saying something the slightest bit controversial. This is how Reddit operates and I am sad to see it taking over Hn too.
• Rochus 5y ago
  "Hipster News"
• gens 5y ago
  "Hacker" "News" (It's a somewhat obscure reference)
• indymike 5y ago
  Business very much is part of hacker culture, and is Very different in tech versus many other industries.
• xyzzy21 5y ago
  It's not really surprising. Engineering (which most programming is) is the economic application of scientific knowledge for human value/advantage. Thus that implies several things: • the core engineering is defined by economics, psychology, sociology, etc. at least 50% with technical/scientific knowledge/skills being the other 50% • the money engineering generates is subject to human need and preference which is why the above liberal arts areas matter • competitive value to the customer defines all projects, all hires and all salaries and decisions are only partially rational even with rational R&D, buying and selling processes • factors that define the negotiation of value for price involve soft sciences which are messy but completely unavoidable. Those of us who "excel" in those areas have realized this and learned skills related. • all of this is what "business" actually is! • thus if you do software seriously, you also should be serious about business - this is analogous to Alan Kay's quote: "people who are serious about software should build their own hardware". If you want "purity", become a scientist - nominally they don't care about anything but the purity/attainment of knowledge. But that alone does NOT pay well. That's why there are 200+ PhDs in physics waiting for each US tenured university position but companies doing engineering can't get enough and pay for that. Science is only 100 years old as a profession. Engineering is many 1000s of years old because it has practical application which everyone else in society can easily agree to fund.
• blacklight 5y ago
  That's the very reason why I stopped following TechCrunch and HackerNoon. It stopped being about tech content and nowadays it's all about the next shiny unicorn or cryptocurrency, IPOs, VCs and interviews with CEOs that sound like TED talks. Another signal of this direction of things: last year's HackerNoon prizes were for the best (individual) contributors (and back then I managed to grab one of them). This year they were all about the best startups. Why should I spend a few days to put together a comprehensive technical article that eventually doesn't get enough eyeballs because the network is more interested in boosting visibility for (often well-paying) startups and VCs? I understand that the IT biz side is also important and we need to follow what's going on that side too. The problem is that the IT biz side is cannibalizing everything else and there aren't many large platforms with deep technical content left. I also understand why things are going in this direction - sponsors and VCs pay better than individual contributors, and by diluting the technical content one widens the potential audience. But it's not a healthy trend for the IT industry. The best ideas come when many technical minds meet and speak in the same place, not when the talk is all about the next unicorn to invest on or the next scandal in <put the name of humungous IT company here>. In the meantime, I've moved my content to my private blog, and many other technical writers have been doing the same. Going back to private blogs because your content doesn't get enough visibility on large platforms feels like moving back the clock of innovation by at least two decades though, and it's not a good thing.
• rel2thr 5y ago
  I think hacker culture died in the early 2000s , it used to be that there was no money in hacker culture so it kind of attracted a certain person who wasn't interested in money or where it wasnt their main thoughts. Now there are so many ways to make money , startups, Fang salaries, crypto, so money kind of dominates the thoughts I have a theory that the current generation will kind of rediscover hacker culture when they hit their 40s and 50s and become financially independent and are no longer motivated by money and there will be a big resurgence.
• sneeeeeed 5y ago
  Didn’t this site start as a jobs and PR board for investment properties owned by venture capitalists?
• el_don_almighty 5y ago
  50 years since building my first heathkit radio with Dad on the kitchen table and I still love reading about the bleeding edge of silicon, algorithms, philosophy, development ideas, and anything else we all churn up. I appreciate the group effort behind HN and rely on YOU for a focus on things that really matter. Thank you for all the hard work
• marto1 5y ago
  Probably something to do with a lot of us becoming pawns in silicon valley's carefully orchestrated theater. Maybe combined with mass media grappling harder and harder for people's attention as their precious TV dies out. Looks like to be quite potent resulting in people posting a lot about politics and business.
  • dang 5y ago
    I can tell you for sure that the moderators here don't give a shit about "silicon valley's carefully orchestrated theater" or any other orchestrated theater. The only orchestration is trying to have a site with the most (intellectually) interesting articles. People disagree a lot about what's intellectually interesting—that's all that's going on here. If you or anyone finds other things more intellectually interesting, you're very welcome to post more of them, or look for them in /newest and upvote more of them.
    • marto1 5y ago
      I was mainly trying to explain why supply side there are a lot more politics/business submits on HN(go to the "new" section) than usual. And I agree moderators are concerned with other things.
• ellis0n 5y ago
  There is a big difference in technology and business. Open source vs closed source. When you create a technology to solve a tech problem and you want kindness and share with the community like "Don't be evil". When you create a business, you want to earn as much money as possible for yourself and your investors and everyone wants too therefore competition is generated and everything is hidden When you want make a technology you are fun like tech pioneers and when you want to the profit from a technology you are startup builder like PG, Musk, Gates, Bezos
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• starXultra 5y ago
  I strongly disagree. Hacker news has strong measures to prevent it turning promotional, and it seems to be working