> I only remember a handful of HN usernames That's a feature. HN is expressly built to encourage high-quality content in the comments - by removing or discoura

> I only remember a handful of HN usernames That's a feature. HN is expressly built to encourage high-quality content in the comments - by removing or discouraging things that tend to bring poor content with them. Not showing up/down-votes counts, not allowing avatars and discouraging lengthy signatures, not showing previews of images linked, not allowing to reply immediately to comments (and the length of "immediately" getting longer the deeper the thread) - the HN is coded this way to encourage sticking to guidelines and making thoughtful comments focused on informative, interesting content. It does make HN a worse place for building interpersonal relations, no question about it - but it also eliminates or blocks many of the enshitiffication vectors. Not all of them, and we do see changes over time in what's acceptable, going in the direction that some will dislike, but I think the fact that HN still existing in relatively constant form almost 20 years later shows that the strategy works, to an extent.