> However, I do have a gripe. Many posts negatively impact upon my self-esteem. Reading HN I get the impression that there are lots and lots of folks earning hu

> However, I do have a gripe. Many posts negatively impact upon my self-esteem. Reading HN I get the impression that there are lots and lots of folks earning huge salaries at very important companies. Lots of others have founded startups, raised $millions and in many cases have had massive windfall exits. This is basically the worst part of any social networking service now. They highlight the breakout success stories, geniuses and outliers so much that it becomes easy to assume everyone else is doing much better than you are. For average Joes it's seeing the influencers and celebrities on Instagram and TikTok, for developers it's Hacker News and Reddit.