By that logic, shouldn't sites like eBay and Craigslist have given way to the e-classified protocol? Does that mean Hacker News is doomed to be replaced by a g

By that logic, shouldn't sites like eBay and Craigslist have given way to the e-classified protocol? Does that mean Hacker News is doomed to be replaced by a generic news aggregation protocol? I don't think it makes sense to assume everything will be replaced by generic versions. The user base is often worth far more than the protocol/service. I think Twitter is a good example of that.