Is HN dieing?
11–20 of 23 posts
Re: Is HN dieing?
#12> being in a startup was something great, nowadays it's frowned upon I've noticed this change, and it's one of my favorite things about HN. There are fewer naive people trumpeting the "accomplishment" of raising money. There are more people advising young devs not to work for equity. Why should we worship the idea of a startup? Startups are not noble in and of themselves. The vast majority are just a form of gambling…
There are fewer naive people trumpeting the "accomplishment" of raising money. There are more people advising young devs not to work for equity.
Yes, but it feels like we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Less promoting raising money as an accomplishment in and of itself is a Good Thing in my book (I've actually written on this very topic). But it feels like we've gone beyond that to a place where innovation, solving hard problems, creating new things, building new businesses, etc., are denigrated.
People ask whether we actually need another to-do app to raise $10M. To me, that's a very welcome change.
That's a fair point, but I feel like the change is much broader than that. It's not just "why do we need this new to-do app" but closer to "startups are evil in general" here lately. You see a lot of anti-capitalist bullshit and generally anti-business sentiment on here over the past couple of years. And given the historical background of this site, that's a pretty major change.
Re: Is HN dieing?
#13> being in a startup was something great, nowadays it's frowned upon I've noticed this change, and it's one of my favorite things about HN. There are fewer naive people trumpeting the "accomplishment" of raising money. There are more people advising young devs not to work for equity. Why should we worship the idea of a startup? Startups are not noble in and of themselves. The vast majority are just a form of gambling…
There are fewer naive people trumpeting the "accomplishment" of raising money. There are more people advising young devs not to work for equity. Yes, but it feels like we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Less promoting raising money as an accomplishment in and of itself is a Good Thing in my book (I've actually written on this very topic). But it feels like we've gone beyond that to a place where innovation…
> You see a lot of anti-capitalist bullshit and generally anti-business sentiment on here over the past couple of years
Sure. But couldn't that just be a change in demographics? It certainly reflects the zeitgeist of the US as a whole. "Late capitalism" and UBI are commonly-discussed topics now, and that wasn't true a few years ago.
The point of my original comment is that, while I agree some things have changed, I don't agree that "dying" is an objective or universal way to describe it.
Re: Is HN dieing?
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are fewer naive people trumpeting the "accomplishment" of raising money. There are more people advising young devs not to work for equity. Yes, but it feels like we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Less promoting raising money as an accomplishment in and of itself is a Good Thing in my book (I've actually written on this very topic). But it feels like we've gone beyond that to a place where innovation…
> You see a lot of anti-capitalist bullshit and generally anti-business sentiment on here over the past couple of years Sure. But couldn't that just be a change in demographics? It certainly reflects the zeitgeist of the US as a whole. "Late capitalism" and UBI are commonly-discussed topics now, and that wasn't true a few years ago. The point of my original comment is that, while I agree some things have changed, I d…
But couldn't that just be a change in demographics? It certainly reflects the zeitgeist of the US as a whole. "Late capitalism" and UBI are commonly-discussed topics now, and that wasn't true a few years ago.
Could be. Probably, even. But I'm not sure that HN "should" mirror the zeitgeist of the US as a whole (or the world as a whole, and so on). It's back to the Eternal September thing, where a community with a specific set of values / beliefs / etc. gets diluted to an excessive degree.
Re: Is HN dieing?
#15Re: Is HN dieing?
#16I've found HN better in the last year or so than at any point since its inception
I find the exact opposite. Over the past year there's been way too much politics, too much anti-business hoopla, too much general news that you can find anywhere, too much negativity, and generally less focus on interesting hacker oriented stuff. This site really as become "Hacker" News in name only. It's now heavily populated by a lot of people who didn't grow up immersed in the hacker ethos, and who don't share the…
>heavily populated by a lot of people who didn't grow up immersed in the hacker ethos, and who don't share the values, traits and attitudes that have defined that community over the years
IOW - it's growing. That is neither good nor bad on its own. It just is.
Communities change through time - for better, worse, and neutral.
Re: Is HN dieing?
#17I've found HN better in the last year or so than at any point since its inception
I find the exact opposite. Over the past year there's been way too much politics, too much anti-business hoopla, too much general news that you can find anywhere, too much negativity, and generally less focus on interesting hacker oriented stuff. This site really as become "Hacker" News in name only. It's now heavily populated by a lot of people who didn't grow up immersed in the hacker ethos, and who don't share the…
I mean, being anti-business is a huge part of the hacker ethos. The whole pro-startup thing being associated with hackers at all is pretty new. So, by returning to anti-business sentiments, HN returns to the hacker ethos of ~1994.
Re: Is HN dieing?
#18not to mention that back then, being in a startup was something great, nowadays it's frowned upon Yeah, there's been a very notable shift here, in terms of the zeitgeist formerly being very pro-business, pro-startup, pro-innovation, and generally positive; and now the zeitgeist being very negative, cynical, anti-business, etc. Not to say that there aren't still voices on both ends of that spectrum, but the prevailing…
I don't know if I would quite put it that way, but I do remember techno-libertarianism being the dominant paradigm on HN at the beginning and for more leftish views to become common over time.
Re: Is HN dieing?
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find the exact opposite. Over the past year there's been way too much politics, too much anti-business hoopla, too much general news that you can find anywhere, too much negativity, and generally less focus on interesting hacker oriented stuff. This site really as become "Hacker" News in name only. It's now heavily populated by a lot of people who didn't grow up immersed in the hacker ethos, and who don't share the…
I mean, being anti-business is a huge part of the hacker ethos. The whole pro-startup thing being associated with hackers at all is pretty new. So, by returning to anti-business sentiments, HN returns to the hacker ethos of ~1994.
I mean, being anti-business is a huge part of the hacker ethos.
FWIW, I never really saw it that way... my perception was that it was more of an "anti BIG business" and "anti proprietary / locked-down / walled garden ecosystem" sentiment. But that's not the same as business per-se. Lots of hackers started businesses and even rms says that selling software for money is fine, so long as user freedom is preserved.
That said, you have a fair point about the startup/hacker "thing" being a little more modern. Then again, 1994 was a pretty long time ago now. So I guess one could argue the point about whether that should be accepted as part of the hacker ethos or not at this point.
Re: Is HN dieing?
#20I've found HN better in the last year or so than at any point since its inception
How many PG essays have been published and/or discussed here in the last 12 months?
Who cares? I've found articles better than PG's best essays on at least a weekly basis. There are billions to choose from -- losing PG isn't going to make much of a dent.
Also, his last essays that I can remember, defending wealth inequality, were uninformed rbagege and (rightly) excoriated on HN and the wider media.