People who are happy about something have no reason to post.

You're talking about two entirely different groups of people even though they're all on HN.

That's not true, I sing the praises of things that bring me value all the time. I am, arguably, getting pretty close to "shill" category for some of them. However, I think that behavior should get a pass if the things being shilled are actually FOSS and not just "change from one company to the other"

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wvenable 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

I think statistically I'm still right. Complaints are always more frequent than positive comments -- and more unsolicited. I always factor that in when reading, for example, product reviews. While there are always people willing to sing the praises of products they like, the average content person is likely to just move on with their lives, and a wronged person cannot wait to tell everyone.

This is also related to Cunningham's Law.

Look at this thread, I've never heard so much positive talk about Pocket in my life. Up until it's imminent demise nobody had any strong inclination to talk positively about it.

	▲	frollogaston 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		You're right. Everywhere I've gone to school or worked, any big online forum was mostly complaints, even though I went to great schools and had cushy jobs. You'd think every course curves to a D- and every employee gets a 10% yearly pay cut. It's simply because one unhappy person can be as active online as 100 happy people. And on some sites like Yelp where complainers aren't disproportionately active, complaints can have disproportionate power. Like a 4.5-star restaurant's average is affected way more by a 1-star review than a 5-star review.

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EasyMark 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

In my experience people are more likely to complain about things that annoy them than those things which make their lives easier. However, nowhere in that statement will you find "everyone" is more likely to complain, just that the probabilities are much higher for complaining about a thing rather than advocating for a different thing.