It slid into irrelevance as the early internet exploded around it and it became an angryish nerd oasis. Reddit easily outscoped it, and HN had the attraction of VC money sloshing behind the scenes.

Slashdot, the site, still lives as a fossil from 10-15 years ago. It must be popular enough to pay its bills.

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tempodox 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

> HN had the attraction of VC money sloshing behind the scenes.

Not to forget Paul Graham’s tales of founder hero myths. Who wouldn't want to call themselves a “hacker”?

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stevekemp 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's probably the real reason, but I think their redesign didn't help either.

The /. redesign wasn't as brutal as that which Digg had, but it was certainly something that stopped me visiting so often.

I just looked and saw to my surprise I still have an account there, the last few comments were made in 2014, 2012, 2011. So maybe I did return later after all.

	▲	hdgvhicv 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		The resistance was the straw, but by then it was already descending from an interesting site frequented by people like Bruce Perens, John Carmack, Wil Wheaton etc, to just more of the same. Taco leaving was another point, I forget if that was before or after the redesign. There’s was a significant amount of Randian right wing group think too, which tended to spiral away Ultimately though it was tacos blog, and that type of site doesn’t scale and retain the quality.

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immibis 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"Angryish nerd oasis" sounds like the same thing that happened to Reddit, so perhaps Slashdot wasn't actually uniquely good. Perhaps it will also happen to HN and lobsters.

	▲	Karrot_Kream 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		It's already happening to HN and Lobsters is going through some internal fighting now. Compare conversations 10 years ago here to now and you can see how much angrier the site has become.

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yomismoaqui 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Don't forget Digg, it was quite big in its time.