After almost four years here, I've definitely felt recently that HN has jumped the shark. I'm also looking for alternatives. allyourstartuparebelongto.us looks promising.
I agree that HN has jumped the shark. As an example case, I dare you to try to express an opinion on HN which does not toe the party line. And for those of you about to down-vote this comment: where are the articles pointing out the problems with HN, where are the articles showing the flaws in Lisp, where are the articles which denounce venture-capital-funded startups as the snake-oil of the modern age? "But those po…
I don't think HN has jumped any sharks in this respect. But we do get a lot more "popular" articles now, and these lead to a lot of controversial-but-substanceless comments, which are annoying. (And I'm not saying I'm not guilty of writing comments like that, BTW.)