> I noticed that while everyone on hn is quite clever

Are we though? I see a pockets of world-expert level knowledge, some reasonable shop talk, and quite a bit of really dumb nonsense that is contradicted by my professional experience. Or just pedestrian level wrong. I mostly shitpost.

I don't have an opinion about arxiv's hosting, but it does read to be one of those projects that includes cleaning up of long standing technical debt that they probably couldn't get funded if not for the flashy goal. The flashy goal will, regardless of it's own merits, also be credited for improvements that they should have made all along.