Ask HN: What tangible benefits did you get from spending time on HN?

Yeah, I agree with you, I also sometimes feel that some comments get unfairly flagged and then trying to argue your opinion to be futile.

But I also think that not every place on the internet is for everyone. I for one feel that the Twitter atmosphere is not comfortable, but I can imagine how other people do think so. So I try to stay away from Twitter.

Not all places invite all groups of people on the planet. I like to discuss with different-minded people, people who think different from me, so I like to talk with people against sexualisation, against drugs, people who are generally more conservative than me, to understand their perspectives. But it's really hard to do that on Twitter, as those people don't feel comfortable there, and that's fine to me. I'll find them where they are comfortable, and then I either adjust myself to the community I'm joining, or I find a different place.

Different and divergent communities on the internet is a good thing, it gives us multiple different ideas at the same time.

Its not as straightforward, but I would never would have thought making my own apps / SaaS to make a living (instead of working for an employer) if I didn't lurk at HN previously.

By lurking at HN, I stumbled across patio11, tptacek, amyhoy, pieter levels, and several other small indie devs sharing their experience, and encouragement.

My apps/ SaaS income are still laughable compared to my salary, but I think it will grow as time goes.

Probably reddit, lobsters, newsgroups, mailing lists, Matrix, IRC, etc. Like any good CTO type.

> Forgive me for being blunt but I am not looking for "10-sec fame". I mean one day you got traffic 100K on the website. Good. But just for one day.

I was lucky to once get my 10-sec-fame on HN. I don't know how much traffic it represented because my site does not have any analytics. However what I I do is very niche and there is not many places on the internet where people will show interest in my work. HN is one of these, I got some high quality comments which I personally think is a tangible benefit.

>So I would like to know if any of you have such experiences. I am specifically looking for stories like: 1) I posted this project and I started some company. Sold it or earning a lot of money or living my dream 2) I was hired because of my post on HN. 3) Girls chasing you because of your reputation as HN or met your wife because of your cool project ( Please don't hate me for this)

This is a cargo-cult understanding of these sorts of places. The sort of things you describe come as a result of random social interactions that could take place anywhere, and are more linked to your personal characteristics than the environment itself. It's true however than HN can be a good environment for some of that as all sorts of people gravitate to it. But it's silly to reason along the lines of 1. Successful tech people go there 2. I will go there too 3. ??? 4. Profit. Technically, it can work but it will only work based on what you put into it along with random chance, it will not work through magical osmosis.

>Also intellectual debate, I get more information, I feel smart as benefits etc. don't count in this context.

I've changed multiple aspects of my lifestyle thanks to HN, although it would be hard to reverse engineer that process and find which post changed what. It has also been a font of inspiration for my creative pursuits. I consider both of these things to be big tangible benefits

If you are worried about "optimizing" your time, just scan through the posts one half-hour per week to check if there's any topic that catches your eye. But yeah, the obvious solution is sometimes the best one: if you want a successful company you'd better be working on such a project. If you want a good job HN can help but you're better off systematically applying and networking. If you want women, you'd better be out there talking to them. I'd say that for that last part, the "I should get X achievement so [relationship/sex] pops out like with a vending machine" type of thinking is both dangerous and surprisingly counter-productive.