It's weird that most of “Hacker” news is dominated by business news • Hacker News Board

Re: It's weird that most of “Hacker” news is dominated by business news

#101

Post by bena » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 1:47 AM UTC

jiggawatts wrote: post #46

Something I noticed about Slashdot was that it started out talking about the latest processors, software, and Linux kernel patches. Then the conversation ever-so-slowly started drifting towards CEOs, the sharemarket, politics, and the like. It's a side-effect of an aging user base. Young people get excited about New Things! With big numbers! Older people get bored of the latest technological advancements and instead…

I don't think it's a function of age, but of size. As Slashdot got larger, it attracted more people who didn't or couldn't talk about those things.

Re: It's weird that most of “Hacker” news is dominated by business news

#102

Post by Semiapies » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 1:47 AM UTC

amelius wrote: post #39

0des wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a website run by a venture capitalist org, ycombinator.

Yes, and they called it "hacker news".

And it was almost called "Startup News".

Re: It's weird that most of “Hacker” news is dominated by business news

#103

Post by justinzollars » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 1:49 AM UTC

I agree. At least 25% of topics are flame war political posts. If you have the wrong opinion you are downvoted. So it makes the community feel pretty bad. I would like to see a policy change. But I won't hold my breath.

Re: It's weird that most of “Hacker” news is dominated by business news

#104

Post by ed » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 1:51 AM UTC

HN was originally called Startup News, and was for startup founders. You might like lobsters, in addition to HN, which has more of a programming focus and overlaps with the community here a bit https://lobste.rs/

Re: It's weird that most of “Hacker” news is dominated by business news

#105

Post by GlennS » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 1:53 AM UTC

kwertyoowiyop wrote: post #93

GlennS wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your overall thrust, but I certainly wouldn't have picked those examples. The diet threads just make me roll my eyes and think "Californians will believe anything"! (Sorry California, I know you don't all fit the stereotype.)

Have you had avocado toast? It’ll rock your world, seriously.

I would be all in on the avocado toast and pomegranite seeds diet.

Re: It's weird that most of “Hacker” news is dominated by business news

#106

Post by H8crilA » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 2:07 AM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #75

jiggawatts wrote: post #46

Something I noticed about Slashdot was that it started out talking about the latest processors, software, and Linux kernel patches. Then the conversation ever-so-slowly started drifting towards CEOs, the sharemarket, politics, and the like. It's a side-effect of an aging user base. Young people get excited about New Things! With big numbers! Older people get bored of the latest technological advancements and instead…

I don't think it's a matter of becoming bored, but about being able to better discern the truth. Eg: Most new things will be completely irrelevant in a couple of years.

Most tech, even the overhyped stuff, seriously outlives the news cycle. Type into trends.google.com something that was popular a few months ago, you'll see what I mean.

For example, remember Cathie Wood? She's already forgotten. The "Facebook whistleblower" will be forgotten in about a month.

Re: It's weird that most of “Hacker” news is dominated by business news

#107

Post by readable » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 2:13 AM UTC

sneak wrote: post #94

wly_cdgr wrote: post #71

This is the social media arm of a for-profit startup incubator business. The "hacker" is just corny branding, man

Your first sentence is true and relevant. Your second is, in a certain light, false (and a bit mean). pg is definitely a hacker in the traditional sense, and much of the stuff posted here is on topic for hackers in the TMRC sense. The shift in the last few decades is that hacking is now a thing that can result in becoming an accidental millionaire. That's going to have societal and cultural effects on the community,…

PG made a second rate e-commerce site and sold it to the most gullible company in the world (Yahoo!). He’s never been anything close to what would be considered a “hacker”. This site’s purpose has always been to shill for YC investments. Sometimes there tech talk that occurs but it’s not the reason HN exists.

Re: It's weird that most of “Hacker” news is dominated by business news

#108

Post by anonymouse008 » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 2:13 AM UTC

acjohnson55 wrote: post #91

concinds wrote: post #61

I think as reddit continued to decline, more people here became interested in debating politics, societal stuff since there was no other "serious" place for it. I wish some of that stuff wasn't here, since it takes away from discussions in other threads. But (and I hope dang sees this) occasionally when HN "strays" away from tech it's absolutely brilliant. There's tons of discussion here on some health issues, diets,…

I think it's almost the opposite. There are great subreddits for pretty much every niche in programming. HN is one size fits all, and a lot of content just never makes the front page, because of bad luck in the New queue, or it's too niche. The front page is the way it is because the regulars and the regular content have reached an equilibrium.

Mind pointing us to a particular subreddit or item that didn’t make the front page?

More so that we all don’t miss out on those new opportunities!

Re: It's weird that most of “Hacker” news is dominated by business news

#109

Post by tppiotrowski » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 2:13 AM UTC

hooande wrote: post #62

You can do an analysis of this, you don't have to rely on personal impressions. Download representative samples of the top hn posts over time. Use open source or free sample tools to classify the text of posts or titles and see how that has changed. You could even do a write up on the experience If you think we don't talk about hacking enough, then give us something to talk about

I agree. Personal impressions are heavily influenced by mood.

Re: It's weird that most of “Hacker” news is dominated by business news

#110

Post by rektide » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 2:15 AM UTC

Software & tech got boring & not worthy of discussing when it biggified & cowardly retreated to inside the corporate firewalls.

There's a lot less to talk about because it's all much more boring, much more is already on tap and available, much of what hacking is done is boring as heck now, inside the bowels of vast enterprises.

The hacker spirit is in jeopardy.