HN is so depressing, but at the same time so Im addicted to it. It’s like tiktok but for people who enjoy plain text and hacking related stuff. When I first visited HN more than 10 years ago (without account) like, 90% of the content was exciting and you got to learn something. Nowadays it’s about 40-50%, and the rest is crap (including comments). I have been trying to leave HN, let’s see if I can do it in 2026.

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LPisGood 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Haven’t people been saying that since the late 2000’s?

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steveklabnik 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.

The actual quote has links, the first of which is to a comment from 2009.

	▲	dingnuts an hour ago \| parent [-]
		particularly ironic comment from an HN/lobsters celebrity account lol this website isn't turning into Reddit, this website has been a pretentious orange subreddit for well over a decade if not right from the get go and a link to this site's Reddiquette page (just as ignored as on any subreddit!) is evidence TO that effect, and not against it! the fact that the link petuously denies reality notwithstanding!

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bakugo an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes, but why can't both be true?

I don't get people who use "you say [thing] is getting worse but someone X years ago said the same!" as an argument that somehow proves [thing] isn't getting worse. Things can become progressively worse over long periods of time, it's not an instant change that can only happen once.

Another context where I often see this "argument" is major Windows versions. People rightfully say they want to stay on Windows 10 because 11 is objectively worse in many ways, and someone jumps in to say "you said the same about 7 to 10" as if it's some sort of gotcha. Both complaints can be right, each new version can be worse than the last.

Right now, we have at least one aspect in which HN has become objectively worse in the past years: AI-generated content. It didn't exist a decade ago, so good luck using that "argument" there. Thankfully, its prevalence is still nowhere near as bad as on Reddit (it's impossible to browse that site for 10 minutes without noticing bots posting blatant ChatGPT responses everywhere and getting hundreds of upvotes), but still.

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trinsic2 25 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Its alright, were not all like that. I found the site cute, at least there are people standing up to the bullshit. I have been blogging about it on my site to https://www.scottrlarson.com/publications/

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Imustaskforhelp 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I do feel like 40-50% signal ratio is still good compared to 90%

HN did give me some leads in the start of just cool things to follow and I have been able to make an understanding of what things interest me and what don't due to it. And this has also been the reason I read a lot of comments etc. and content here, maybe more than I should.

I don't know to me, building my own website and forum etc. are possible but they feel complicated and I still can't seem to get eye balls. On Hackernews Comments its easier personally to write something, get feedback on it, (improve?/learn?)

Of course if one wants to optimize for eyeballs, they can probably go for reddit or twitter maxxing or similar because cmon this is exactly the stuff the article is talking about from what I see.

Hackernews does indeed sit on the perfect spot. I feel like if you want more informationally dense topics, perhaps lobsters can be good for ya.

https://lobste.rs/

	▲	BlackjackCF 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I always forget about lobste.rs because I never comment since I don’t have an account and don’t know anyway of getting an invite.

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lisbbb 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The site that is really, insufferably toxic is LinkedIn.

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zenlot 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Whereabout you plan to move?