Statistics if nothing else. Maybe more people would look at old pages given the incentive. Maybe someone will come up with a "best of hacker news" website, with

Statistics if nothing else. Maybe more people would look at old pages given the incentive. Maybe someone will come up with a "best of hacker news" website, with the highly rated or popular stories and a selection of the most prominent comments. Given the demographics, I'm sure the ratings will be used by someone for something. :)