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The trend I'm noticing is people mentioning that if only HN was moved to <insert-cloud-provider>, problems would go away. Instead of doing that, they probably

The trend I'm noticing is people mentioning that if only HN was moved to <insert-cloud-provider>, problems would go away. Instead of doing that, they probably dropped a bit more than a thousand dollars on a box, and are probably saving thousands in costs per year. This is money coming out of someone's pocket. This site is here, and it's a charity, being provided free of cost, to you. Who cares if HN is down for a few hours? Seriously? Has anyone been hurt because of this, yet?

loceng 13y ago
Not to discount the value of HackerNews, however there is great benefit to YCombinator being associated with it; They could let it go down and never host it again but they would lose value.
- annnnd 13y ago
  Yes, but I don't think such shortages do them much harm.
  - loceng 13y ago
    I think it's pretty bad that something run by YCombinator, a company trying to build billion dollar companies, has outages - and where they don't have immediate redundancy.
  - colinbartlett 13y ago
    Sadly, I agree. But only because there's not a viable alternative. It's like if YouTube goes down for an hour, everyone whines but really nothing changes.
    - annnnd 13y ago
      I wouldn't say that. I think they are competitive because they focus on what is important and disregard the rest as much as they can. And high availability is clearly not what is important for success in this case. With Youtube I wouldn't be so sure...
  - larrys 13y ago
    "do them much harm." Hard to quantify "harm". But I will say that anything that is a habit, when broken, opens you up to the possibility of being exposed to a new habit "the addiction".[1] Along those lines 1 day of downtime probably isn't going to shift attention much. But an extreme, 2 weeks, would certainly break some addictions as people would fork to a new (I don't know insert some french or latin word here!) So who is to say where that slippery slope of is? (Somewhere between 1 minute and 2 weeks). [1] Reason that I have heard that Starbucks renovates restaurants at greater expense and keeps them open at least some hours. Because people's habits are mercurial.
    - loceng 13y ago
      Yup. This is why practices like fasting, or change in environment / traveling is good to help you get out of routines - to see what you've been conditioned to and what habits you've formed.
whyme 13y ago
It's hardly a charity when it creates real value for ycombinator.
catinsocks 13y ago
HN is not a charity, it is a marketing platform for YC with some community aspects. There is a very strong bias to everything YC. The HN community has also outgrown the software HN was built on you can see this in threads like: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7051091 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7051091 but even that thread is an extreme many front page items that gain traction are hard to go through because of things like lack of foldable comments. Other things that are extremely noticeable are expiring links which pg has said he doesn't think are important enough to fix. There are many small UI issues that won't be fixed for the community.
- helicoidal 13y ago
  https://userscripts.org/scripts/show/110317 https://userscripts.org/scripts/show/110317
- maxerickson 13y ago
  Here's a bookmarklet that turns each timestamp into a comment tree folder (collapsing that branch): https://gist.github.com/maxerickson/8456792 https://gist.github.com/maxerickson/8456792 Credit to http://alexander.kirk.at/js/hackernews-collapsible-threads-v4.js http://alexander.kirk.at/js/hackernews-collapsible-threads-v... which I referenced for dealing with the structure.
- Harj 13y ago
  HN is not a charity, it is a marketing platform for YC with some community aspects. Feels more like a community with some YC marketing aspects to me.
  - OafTobark 13y ago
    I disagree. It feels very YC driven.
johne20 13y ago
These type of threads always end up being "cloud vs dedicated" when in my opinion it should be about the architecture. It shouldn't matter if you are running dedicated vs cloud assuming a fairly reliable provider. It should be about avoiding single points of failure and redundancy. eg. If there is a hardware failure, can the site still remain operational? Of course resources cost money, but you could have 2 cheaper/smaller servers load balanced for around the price of 1 pricier/bigger server.

loceng 13y ago

Not to discount the value of HackerNews, however there is great benefit to YCombinator being associated with it; They could let it go down and never host it again but they would lose value.

annnnd 13y ago
Yes, but I don't think such shortages do them much harm.
- loceng 13y ago
  I think it's pretty bad that something run by YCombinator, a company trying to build billion dollar companies, has outages - and where they don't have immediate redundancy.
- colinbartlett 13y ago
  Sadly, I agree. But only because there's not a viable alternative. It's like if YouTube goes down for an hour, everyone whines but really nothing changes.
  - annnnd 13y ago
    I wouldn't say that. I think they are competitive because they focus on what is important and disregard the rest as much as they can. And high availability is clearly not what is important for success in this case. With Youtube I wouldn't be so sure...
- larrys 13y ago
  "do them much harm." Hard to quantify "harm". But I will say that anything that is a habit, when broken, opens you up to the possibility of being exposed to a new habit "the addiction".[1] Along those lines 1 day of downtime probably isn't going to shift attention much. But an extreme, 2 weeks, would certainly break some addictions as people would fork to a new (I don't know insert some french or latin word here!) So who is to say where that slippery slope of is? (Somewhere between 1 minute and 2 weeks). [1] Reason that I have heard that Starbucks renovates restaurants at greater expense and keeps them open at least some hours. Because people's habits are mercurial.
  - loceng 13y ago
    Yup. This is why practices like fasting, or change in environment / traveling is good to help you get out of routines - to see what you've been conditioned to and what habits you've formed.

whyme 13y ago

It's hardly a charity when it creates real value for ycombinator.

catinsocks 13y ago

HN is not a charity, it is a marketing platform for YC with some community aspects. There is a very strong bias to everything YC. The HN community has also outgrown the software HN was built on you can see this in threads like: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7051091 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7051091 but even that thread is an extreme many front page items that gain traction are hard to go through because of things like lack of foldable comments. Other things that are extremely noticeable are expiring links which pg has said he doesn't think are important enough to fix. There are many small UI issues that won't be fixed for the community.

helicoidal 13y ago
https://userscripts.org/scripts/show/110317 https://userscripts.org/scripts/show/110317
maxerickson 13y ago
Here's a bookmarklet that turns each timestamp into a comment tree folder (collapsing that branch): https://gist.github.com/maxerickson/8456792 https://gist.github.com/maxerickson/8456792 Credit to http://alexander.kirk.at/js/hackernews-collapsible-threads-v4.js http://alexander.kirk.at/js/hackernews-collapsible-threads-v... which I referenced for dealing with the structure.
Harj 13y ago
HN is not a charity, it is a marketing platform for YC with some community aspects. Feels more like a community with some YC marketing aspects to me.
- OafTobark 13y ago
  I disagree. It feels very YC driven.

johne20 13y ago

These type of threads always end up being "cloud vs dedicated" when in my opinion it should be about the architecture. It shouldn't matter if you are running dedicated vs cloud assuming a fairly reliable provider. It should be about avoiding single points of failure and redundancy. eg. If there is a hardware failure, can the site still remain operational? Of course resources cost money, but you could have 2 cheaper/smaller servers load balanced for around the price of 1 pricier/bigger server.