I'm only in the 4.5 year club, but I'd say story submissions are better now, but comments are worse. HN also goes through fashion trends. I remember when it was

I'm only in the 4.5 year club, but I'd say story submissions are better now, but comments are worse. HN also goes through fashion trends. I remember when it was full of Ruby on Rails posts and Bitcoin posts. Now they pop up, but less frequently. For obvious reasons Aaron Swartz and related submissions will dominate for a while. Dunno what the next trend will be.