Well, adding a monetary component into the mix would achieve two things: 1. HackerNews would have more resources to do maintenance and development on the site.

Well, adding a monetary component into the mix would achieve two things: 1. HackerNews would have more resources to do maintenance and development on the site. Both of which are relatively necessary: There's a lot of low-hanging fruit. 2. It would create an incentive to improve the service and prevent downtime. Would they really put the site down for multiple hours during (European) office hours if they had quite a few paying customers? Primarily, though, I think it boils down to the fact that Hacker News was originally run as a service towards the YC alumni, and that it serves that purpose very well as it is - and as a result, product development has stalled. The original author (PG, the product owner) is busy doing other things, and has employed other people to run the show. Truth is, Hacker News has outgrown its original audience (YC alumni) and would be ready for some changes or improvements. Nothing major, because it's great as it is, but it could use some bug fixing, or maybe getting the HTML and CSS up to date, or a mobile version, finally fixing that stupid 'up' arrow... I could go on. I care about Hacker News, and I want it to improve and to be available permanently, and most certainly not be offline when I wake up and am ready for my 21st century equivalent of the morning newspaper. That's why I wrote that angry message, and that's why I'm offering to pay to help achieve that.