One time I was at a Holiday Inn at the same time as some multi-level marketer (pyramid scheme) conference. Breakfast conversation sounded like this:

Girl 1: "You should really check out Mary Kay, I'm making a fortune and could use help!"

Girl 2: "I'm not interested because I'm too busy making a fortune selling Herbalife, would love to send you some materials if you're interested!"

Girl 3: "Wow, that sounds great, I'd join you both if I weren't so busy getting rich selling the wonderful products in this Amway catalogue! Here's my card."

...This is what Product Hunt felt like the last time I visited organically like 7 years ago.

Somehow in the early days it didn't though, it felt like more of a community finding cool new stuff. Encouraging people to turn their PH launch into an "event" poisoned the well I think.