4 ms·

A bit of a rant, but I find it hard to believe pg goes on reddit much if this is how he feels. I remember years ago reddit was a lot more like HN. The comment

A bit of a rant, but I find it hard to believe pg goes on reddit much if this is how he feels. I remember years ago reddit was a lot more like HN. The comment section (even for the main subs) was much more intellectual and critical. People appeared to actually read posted articles. It was a thing where people would read the comment section before the article because everyone knew headlines were generally clickbait, and you could rely on some internet stranger to have analyzed the article and demonstrate the headline wasn't all as it seemed. But now it seems that no one reads the articles at all or care for any sort of discourse with people with different opinions. Comments are filled with just jabs and pitchforks. No different than comment sections on news sites. Yet Redditors still seem to have the arrogance that it had developed over the years that their communities are better than those sites. And well, they used to be, but now they're just as bad.

slingnow 3y ago
And it's very clear to me that HN is next to suffer this fate
- diggan 3y ago
  Luckily, we have the golden rule that will surely prevent this fate: > Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills. Bottom of https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- theGnuMe 3y ago
  Not next, it already does... but hacker news is also very hard to kill.
- sdflhasjd 3y ago
  HN has got worse in some places - I think size is the enemy of any community - but HN has comfortably sat behind the curve because it doesn't try to leave its niche. It is mostly outside forces that have changed HN (I.e growth of the general Internet population and big tech), whereas Reddit, etc try to change themselves (by changing their format and gamifying engagement)
  - _pi 3y ago
    HN's worst times was at peak free money tech optimism. Plenty of pretending that running a "successful" startup wasn't 90% scamming. The actual tech and programming didn't matter, all that mattered was that your `hello world.proj` was a money pump from users to shareholders or from shareholders to founders. Just find all the old posts that say Uber/WeWork/Theranos/Tesla/SpaceX/etc will all make bajillions in 10 years and their tech is amazing and the problems are actually not that hard.
- dang 3y ago
  People have been saying that since before Hacker News was called Hacker News. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852 Whatever the poison is, to quote Voltaire, "it must be very slow". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21755721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21755721
- Phiwise_ 3y ago
  Fun fact: Half of all HN posts/ comments were made in the last five years. I'm brand-new to here instead of reddit (no subs grrr), but look old as the hills from this perspective.
- huimang 3y ago
  Let's not kid ourselves. HN already has the problem of commentors not reading the article, we're just not allowed to discuss it as per the rules.
unethical_ban 3y ago
I use RES to tag users that fit certain profiles of spamming divisive content or are just karma farming. In the past few months of lurking reddit an hour a day (sadly) I have accumulated more than 200 accounts that I took the time to identify, and many get banned. My count is only that low because I filter subs when I find they're total trash. Much of reddit is, as they say, a cesspool. I have filtered over 200 subs from /r/all on my browser due to being nothing but spam, or being hatefully divisive on race or identity, or being a political echo chamber. If it burned down, little would be lost, and it would simply be replaced by another spam content farm. Example spam submission: https://old.reddit.com/r/FuckImOld/comments/1bk3ovp/what_else/ https://old.reddit.com/r/FuckImOld/comments/1bk3ovp/what_els... Example user submitting spam: https://old.reddit.com/user/NaturallyFlashy https://old.reddit.com/user/NaturallyFlashy Notice account age compared with post history.
hsjsbeebue 3y ago
Non mainstream Reddit is still great. city specific subs for example and some programming subs.

slingnow 3y ago

And it's very clear to me that HN is next to suffer this fate

diggan 3y ago
Luckily, we have the golden rule that will surely prevent this fate: > Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills. Bottom of https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
theGnuMe 3y ago
Not next, it already does... but hacker news is also very hard to kill.
sdflhasjd 3y ago
HN has got worse in some places - I think size is the enemy of any community - but HN has comfortably sat behind the curve because it doesn't try to leave its niche. It is mostly outside forces that have changed HN (I.e growth of the general Internet population and big tech), whereas Reddit, etc try to change themselves (by changing their format and gamifying engagement)
- _pi 3y ago
  HN's worst times was at peak free money tech optimism. Plenty of pretending that running a "successful" startup wasn't 90% scamming. The actual tech and programming didn't matter, all that mattered was that your `hello world.proj` was a money pump from users to shareholders or from shareholders to founders. Just find all the old posts that say Uber/WeWork/Theranos/Tesla/SpaceX/etc will all make bajillions in 10 years and their tech is amazing and the problems are actually not that hard.
dang 3y ago
People have been saying that since before Hacker News was called Hacker News. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852 Whatever the poison is, to quote Voltaire, "it must be very slow". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21755721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21755721
Phiwise_ 3y ago
Fun fact: Half of all HN posts/ comments were made in the last five years. I'm brand-new to here instead of reddit (no subs grrr), but look old as the hills from this perspective.
huimang 3y ago
Let's not kid ourselves. HN already has the problem of commentors not reading the article, we're just not allowed to discuss it as per the rules.

unethical_ban 3y ago

I use RES to tag users that fit certain profiles of spamming divisive content or are just karma farming. In the past few months of lurking reddit an hour a day (sadly) I have accumulated more than 200 accounts that I took the time to identify, and many get banned. My count is only that low because I filter subs when I find they're total trash. Much of reddit is, as they say, a cesspool. I have filtered over 200 subs from /r/all on my browser due to being nothing but spam, or being hatefully divisive on race or identity, or being a political echo chamber. If it burned down, little would be lost, and it would simply be replaced by another spam content farm. Example spam submission: https://old.reddit.com/r/FuckImOld/comments/1bk3ovp/what_else/ https://old.reddit.com/r/FuckImOld/comments/1bk3ovp/what_els... Example user submitting spam: https://old.reddit.com/user/NaturallyFlashy https://old.reddit.com/user/NaturallyFlashy Notice account age compared with post history.

hsjsbeebue 3y ago

Non mainstream Reddit is still great. city specific subs for example and some programming subs.