Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 295 posts

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

#261

Post by hnfong »

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 was a regular reader of Slashdot in the early 2000s. There were loads of discussions about politics, open source politics, flamewars, Microsoft EVIL, etc... Maybe not as much business and stock, perhaps because tech wasn't worth that much money yet, but it wasn't like all oooooh shiny tech news. IIRC 911 was one of the top commented posts, and US elections were probably up there as well.

These days Microsoft kinda mellowed out (at least with regards to its attitude to open source and the non-MS dev community), and new tech giants came into the fray, but at least to me, the mix of news topics don't really seem that much different.

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

#262

Post by concinds »

GlennS wrote: post #83
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 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.)

Believe me, tons of people who deal with chronic health issues have seen a dozen doctors who couldn’t help a bit, wasted tons of money, and if a single comment has good anecdotes about an effective supplement or lifestyle change, you’re happy for every scrap you get. It’s like drinking non-sparkling water in the desert: could be San Pelegríno instead, but at least you’re not dying of thirst.

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

#263

Post by superflit2 »

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…

Slashdot got bought by a (((company))) linked to porn.

The reason these companies buy news/comment sites as slashdot is to command and manage the narratives.

Something bad about my companies? Downvote 10x. shadowban.

Lets make that product feature in popular..

Thus the sites dwindle and loose the reputation.

There would not be a site with news or popular that can have free discussion or "fairness". That would be too dangerous for a lower/middle class to start realizing they are being milked and will not have any social security.

PS. I use the ((())) as a hack on elisp to cancel threads. The more I use ((())) with a pronoun inside more chances the thread will be cancelled. I think PG loved lisp too much..

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

#264

Post by 0_____0 »

superflit2 wrote: post #263
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…

Slashdot got bought by a (((company))) linked to porn. The reason these companies buy news/comment sites as slashdot is to command and manage the narratives. Something bad about my companies? Downvote 10x. shadowban. Lets make that product feature in popular.. Thus the sites dwindle and loose the reputation. There would not be a site with news or popular that can have free discussion or "fairness". That would be too…

Uhhhh just FYI the triple parenthesis means something specific on fora these days.

Brief rundown: It was initially used by neo-nazis to tag Jews (names highlighted by triple parenthesis). Now it occasionally sees use by Jewish people as well, who might put their own name in triple parenthesis as a middle finger to the neo-nazis.

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

#265

Post by huwnang »

0_____0 wrote: post #264
superflit2 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slashdot got bought by a (((company))) linked to porn. The reason these companies buy news/comment sites as slashdot is to command and manage the narratives. Something bad about my companies? Downvote 10x. shadowban. Lets make that product feature in popular.. Thus the sites dwindle and loose the reputation. There would not be a site with news or popular that can have free discussion or "fairness". That would be too…

Uhhhh just FYI the triple parenthesis means something specific on fora these days. Brief rundown: It was initially used by neo-nazis to tag Jews (names highlighted by triple parenthesis). Now it occasionally sees use by Jewish people as well, who might put their own name in triple parenthesis as a middle finger to the neo-nazis.

I hadn't heard about that. Is it widely recognized? I just remember that once upon a time I would see single parentheses used as hugs.

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

#266

Post by blacklight »

That's the very reason why I stopped following TechCrunch and HackerNoon. It stopped being about tech content and nowadays it's all about the next shiny unicorn or cryptocurrency, IPOs, VCs and interviews with CEOs that sound like TED talks.

Another signal of this direction of things: last year's HackerNoon prizes were for the best (individual) contributors (and back then I managed to grab one of them). This year they were all about the best startups. Why should I spend a few days to put together a comprehensive technical article that eventually doesn't get enough eyeballs because the network is more interested in boosting visibility for (often well-paying) startups and VCs?

I understand that the IT biz side is also important and we need to follow what's going on that side too. The problem is that the IT biz side is cannibalizing everything else and there aren't many large platforms with deep technical content left.

I also understand why things are going in this direction - sponsors and VCs pay better than individual contributors, and by diluting the technical content one widens the potential audience. But it's not a healthy trend for the IT industry. The best ideas come when many technical minds meet and speak in the same place, not when the talk is all about the next unicorn to invest on or the next scandal in .

In the meantime, I've moved my content to my private blog, and many other technical writers have been doing the same. Going back to private blogs because your content doesn't get enough visibility on large platforms feels like moving back the clock of innovation by at least two decades though, and it's not a good thing.

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

#267

Post by huwnang »

jaytaylor wrote: post #16

Try lobste.rs ( https://lobste.rs ) if you want "real" hacker news. They punish non-technical submissions.

I never realized I wasn’t the only oddball who had so little connection with other computer people that they didn’t know anyone to let them into lobste.rs.

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

#268

Post by SiliconVallet »

aliswe wrote: post #247
pyrrhotech wrote: post #81

Software is becoming less and less of a tech industry and more and more commoditized. Very little innovation in the past 5-10 years. Very few successful companies during that time have come about by having incredibly innovative and novel technology - almost all are simply using run of the mill, commoditized technology to solve business problems that they have large domain knowledge of. Given this, it makes total sens…

im not sure i disagree, but i have a few points that i believe do fit the timeframe: * openAIs text engine * teslas driver assists * serverless workers as ga in cloud * container instances as ga in the cloud * .net core, blazor? * cloudflares infrastructural innovations * next.js or whatever the latest framework is called (was it nuxt?) * webassembly ga? * rust ga?

These are all very minute, if they even register, improvements when you step back and look at the grand scope of things...

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

#269

Post by rel2thr »

I think hacker culture died in the early 2000s , it used to be that there was no money in hacker culture so it kind of attracted a certain person who wasn't interested in money or where it wasnt their main thoughts.

Now there are so many ways to make money , startups, Fang salaries, crypto, so money kind of dominates the thoughts

I have a theory that the current generation will kind of rediscover hacker culture when they hit their 40s and 50s and become financially independent and are no longer motivated by money and there will be a big resurgence.

Post reply on HN