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Ask HN: What tangible benefits did you get from spending time on HN?
151–160 of 283 posts
Re: Ask HN: What tangible benefits did you get from spending time on HN?
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In order to keep the EV/time positive, I have become more disciplined around which articles I decide to read the comments on. Can you expand on your methods here? I still get value from HN but want to dial things back a bit.
The average comment quality nosedives when the subject has in any way been politicized. I don’t always follow it, but as a rule for any post about climate, immigration, diversity, and so on reading the comments is at best a waste of time even when the submission is high quality. Comment quality is generally high on computing related technical subjects—unsurprisingly for a community composed of subject matter experts.…
Yes agreed. I find it's pretty easy to tell comments and stories where people are genuinely interested in learning things, and those where there is a lot of "advocacy" or meming of a political position they heard from somebody else.
Some subjects attract a lot of the latter comments. This applies to both technical and business stories.
IMO if you want to get more value, then learn to tell the difference, and don't spend a lot of time "arguing with people on the Internet". You could do that forever on HN, but you can also get a ton of value out of it if you spend your attention wisely.
Re: Ask HN: What tangible benefits did you get from spending time on HN?
#153I've all but given up social media elsewhere on the web, HN is one of my last holdouts, and I would argue that's it's more of a forum than classic social media. HN does not engage in nefarious methods of keeping you engaged. It does not send you alerts telling you about what you've missed, it does not curate the home page to place you in your own personal echo chamber. These for me are it's strengths. However, like a…
I have to agree it does feel more like a forum. I wonder how HN achieves this.
I think there are a few reasons it feels more like a forum than social media:
- No social network of friends/follows/circles
- No advertising
- No notifications on replies/threads
- Good moderation
Re: Ask HN: What tangible benefits did you get from spending time on HN?
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was going to answer in a similar vein, although I don't normally participate in the discussions, mainly because English is not my native tongue and although I think I can now read at the level of a native speaker, I find it significantly more difficult to write in it (and, being a language that for reasons that elude me I love, I hate how artificial and unnatural my phrases sound like). In my case, I have a backgro…
Well, the level of English in this comment is well above that of the average on Hacker News!
Thank you for your comment, you've really brightened up my day!
Re: Ask HN: What tangible benefits did you get from spending time on HN?
#155On an internet with a generally lousy signal-to-noise ratio, HN generally affords useful tech pointers.
It's what Slashdot was a couple decades back.
Re: Ask HN: What tangible benefits did you get from spending time on HN?
#156I use it to learn about the type of people I'm dealing with in the Tech Industry, and how they speak and act when they're peudo-anonymous.
Blind is better for this than HN, but HN is pretty good, especially with the rise in throwaway accounts. I think this is because HN is more diverse, and Blind by it's nature is employees at your company and other big tech companies.
Re: Ask HN: What tangible benefits did you get from spending time on HN?
#157HN is the only public place I've found that has well beyond a critical mass of people who have started, owned, operated, or worked at very strong startups and technology companies. When the media is out of touch on a topic, HN will often be right on the money. And HN has a lot of good ideas on management and business strategy if you're down to dig for it.
As a result if you want to read the ideas of or get your ideas in front of people who are actually in the arena of modern tech companies (with a definite SV / American / western european / VC backed startup slant), this is the best place I've seen.
HN also has the most "real talk" about startup equity value that I've ever seen, although I think that the HN POV on equity is broadly more negative than it should be.
Re: Ask HN: What tangible benefits did you get from spending time on HN?
#158In some ways, it’s what’s not here that brings me here. Other sites are filled with ads, hate, click bait, images, videos, trackers, etc. When you need to kill 10 minutes waiting in line, the efficiency of what you can learn here is unmatched.
Re: Ask HN: What tangible benefits did you get from spending time on HN?
#159Posted a comment on this thread, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26321793, then had people contact me and had very good conversations as a result.
Also, I met my co-founder on reddit/r/algotrading and it was a total game-changer for me (reddit is not HN, but similar)
Re: Ask HN: What tangible benefits did you get from spending time on HN?
#160Just my personal opinion, but if you’re looking for a place to advertise your startup, then I doubt HN is the right place. Personally I come to HN because it’s one of the few places you can have a discussion and read comments without having to dig through dozens of memes and low attempt jokes.
I was going to answer in a similar vein, although I don't normally participate in the discussions, mainly because English is not my native tongue and although I think I can now read at the level of a native speaker, I find it significantly more difficult to write in it (and, being a language that for reasons that elude me I love, I hate how artificial and unnatural my phrases sound like). In my case, I have a backgro…
Wow, I have to say that I think you write beautifully. I’m a native English speaker learning a second language and I can only hope to be able to write this well.