It's definitely useful. Most of my other aggregate information sources have serious overlap with each other or are hyper-specific, HN is a definite outlier that

It's definitely useful. Most of my other aggregate information sources have serious overlap with each other or are hyper-specific, HN is a definite outlier that surfaces a broad range of interesting material I wouldn't come across otherwise. As for whether this is positive... If I'm being objective, I can't say that having even more well-curated content available is a positive influence. But my difficulties in curbing a tendency to binge on reading material aren't the site's fault. Though, it would be helpful if I could set the front page to only show 10 or 15 items instead of 30.