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Any ideas what caused the leveling off of HN's growth around Nov. 2011? The curve looks like an exponential up to that point, and flat since. Edit: Reddit's g

Any ideas what caused the leveling off of HN's growth around Nov. 2011? The curve looks like an exponential up to that point, and flat since. Edit: Reddit's growth rate appears to abruptly change at around the same point actually. Jan. 2012 in their case: https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=reddit&date=1%2F2004%20127m&cmpt=q https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=reddit&date=1%2F2004.... Exponential before and after, but a much slower one after, and the change again appears quite abrupt. I find it interesting because my site's growth exhibits a similar pattern - fast exponential for some time, followed by a slower exponential, followed by something that looks linear-ish. (And most of it could be loosely fit with a single slower exponential, like the reddit curve.) Each of the step changes in growth in our case can be attributed to specific events, so I tended to see them as anomalies, but I wonder if that kind of growth profile is actually more common.

lettergram 12y ago
Mostly speculation, but I do have a fair amount of experience in marketing, economics, and growing websites... That can happen if you reach a maximum audience. In other words, everyone has seen your website decided to stay (or not) and unless they have a new reason to come back they are gone forever. I suspect Hacker News may have hit critical mass because they have as many new members as leaving members. They received a fair amount of attention a few years ago and now are kinda "old news" for many people. Unless they improve retention rate or have a mass influx of attention (i.e. featured on CNN, Reddit, etc.) perhaps invent something new, it will remain relatively constant (or decline if they screw something up).