There's also the challenge of getting the right audience for the site, especially in the early days. Hacker News isn't just popular because it's a tech forum, b

There's also the challenge of getting the right audience for the site, especially in the early days. Hacker News isn't just popular because it's a tech forum, but because it's one where many of the smartest, most resourceful and sometimes most powerful people in the industry are active members, and where the founder/lead engineer of a large company or project is likely to appear in the comments section. A lot of other Hacker News equivalents don't have that, and hence end up being just another internet forum in a list of millions. There's also probably the fact that the format works better for engineers than it does designers or artists or athletes or musicians, since the former tend to be more of a fan of 'simple' websites with utilitarian designs. A lot of clones try to copy the Hacker News style, only to realise that their target audience finds the layout ugly and offputting.