3 ms·
Where are all the supposed productivity gains going on HN?
At best, average credibility across HN from what I can see has remained roughly the same, though it realistically went down a bit compared to 3 years ago. (When GPT-4 became widely used with decently useful outputs)
Same for the average credibility of submissions, YC startup batches, and so on.
The average level of detail of HN comments is not any higher either.
There are more comments and more submissions per day, but that seems due to more accounts?
So observably, overall productivity gains seem to be nil, or even slightly negative.
It may be that HN and YC is perfectly insulated from broader societal productivity, but I doubt that.
What could explain it?
- uberman 4mo agoHow on earth do you conclude anything about productivity gains from an anecdotal observation of the credibility of HN posts?
- MichaelZuo 4mo agoDid you not finish reading the post? Average detail level, volume, and so on, are obviously factors too…?
- uberman 4mo agoLet's take it at face value that you objectively measured productivity somehow, measured credibility, post detail and even volume. Why do you even feel there is or should be a casual relationship in either direction between hacker news participation and productivity?
- MichaelZuo 4mo agoBecause I doubt there is literally perfect insulation around HN/YC? Like I said in the post?
- MichaelZuo 4mo agoEven if we look at specific examples, say randomly selected comment chains about popular XYZ topic. Then comparing June of 2026 to June of 2023, it does not yield any noticeable gains. It’s at best flat or even a bit of a downward trend in credibility, level of detail, and so on.