Cancer except when it’s in the form that I approve such as HN? Where it has all the problems of social media — astroturfing, self promoting, bots, etc.

HN is as close to social media as my 3rd grade talent show was to Michael Jackson's Super Bowl halftime show.

Please. At best HN has a very small subset of the problems in social media, and its positives easily outweigh its negatives. This is a well moderated forum with a lot of bright people and industry experts that a young person could learn from by observing conversation and debate. It bears a great deal of resemblance to historic methods of learning by watching experts interact and debate. Tons of pedagogical value is here for a young person to latch onto.

A most obvious difference besides that is HN isn’t a nonstop feed of short form video appealing to the insecurities of teenagers, using notifications and social feedback loops and the suggestion that you’d be missing out on what your friends are up to if you left.

HN doesn’t even let you follow people and barely lets you know who they are. It’s centered on ideas, not people. HN and social media are almost nothing alike.