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How the AI bubble ate Y Combinator

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Re: How the AI bubble ate Y Combinator

#191

Post by Karrot_Kream »

pessimizer wrote: post #175
pixl97 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I see far fewer discussions of open source as compared to AI. Because the big discussions of open source were decades ago now. If you add up all the discussions of open source in the past I'd assume they'd out number the AI discussions now. Also, there is very little novel to discuss about open source. Now novel and 'important' are different things, but novel is what tends to write articles and get eyeballs.

There's an enormous amount to discuss about "open source," and it's neglected enough that the bro generation of programmers doesn't even understand it, or the difference between it and Free software, and what those differences materially mean to developers and the public at large. The reason that HN is eaten up by LLMs is because it's eaten by any trendy topic that's in the mainstream news. HN used to be directed by…

You've really hit the nail on the head on how I feel. Especially with this line:

> This place used to make stories, not just Digg them.

I've started to dread most conversations about FOSS on this site because they just turn into the same tired old high-energy, low-quality conversation repeated over and over again. There's little incentive for anyone of influence or expertise to contribute because, well, all of these conversations end up the same way.

I guess I disagree on your view of the moderation of this site. While it's true that pg used to do a lot of guidance and tastemaking on HN, the scale of the site was small enough where he could. At this point the site is massive and only growing and this new userbase expects a Digg or Reddit like norm, not one that drives tastemaking. I think the site would require a fundamental rehaul to offer an individual or a group the tastemaking that pg could do when the site was a fraction of the size.

I also think, for better or for worse, that HN has "accepted" not being the tastemaker anymore and becoming another tech news aggregator. It's because the eyeballs of folks new to these issues doesn't really fall onto this site anymore. For a while that had been Twitter but now that Twitter is under Musk, it's lost that distinction and now tech discussions don't seem to have a good home.

Re: How the AI bubble ate Y Combinator

#192

Post by Karrot_Kream »

pixl97 wrote: post #189
pessimizer wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an enormous amount to discuss about "open source," and it's neglected enough that the bro generation of programmers doesn't even understand it, or the difference between it and Free software, and what those differences materially mean to developers and the public at large. The reason that HN is eaten up by LLMs is because it's eaten by any trendy topic that's in the mainstream news. HN used to be directed by…

Even if pg where here to do so, it wouldn't happen the way you think it would. Open source got ate by AWS and closed behind paid for services. We had those discussions in the past, we lost, the market spoke. Moreso the internet evolved into something we don't like. In the early days it wasn't that hard to have an energetic conversation because you were having conversations with real people at their digression. Yes, t…

> Moreso the internet evolved into something we don't like.

> If you can come to terms with that, maybe a rebirth of FOSS that targets our base instincts can arise.

> The cyberpunk dystopia we were warned of is already here and the masses invited it with open arms.

Mature conversations need to accept reality to move forward. I disagree with the implication in your comment that we are in uniquely lost times. I think FOSS was under much, much more threat in the Microsoft and proprietary software times than it is now. Remember when encryption was locked by the NSA? I just think the community on this site has locked itself into a local minimum of getting frustrated and sad over the state of things they don't like. Once any upvote-based site gets locked into one of these local minima it becomes really hard to escape as the incentive structure of voting continues to reward tapping into the same emotions.

Re: How the AI bubble ate Y Combinator

#193

Post by pixl97 »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #179
pessimizer wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an enormous amount to discuss about "open source," and it's neglected enough that the bro generation of programmers doesn't even understand it, or the difference between it and Free software, and what those differences materially mean to developers and the public at large. The reason that HN is eaten up by LLMs is because it's eaten by any trendy topic that's in the mainstream news. HN used to be directed by…

That is an insight that my age simply didn't bring. I am not sure about the accuracy of it as I was there after the AI era and I have only seen the slow but steady creep of it. > This place used to make stories, not just Digg them This does give me goosebumps. Honestly, I like this place because it has a lot of nice people and we are more alike and different and it's just that this seems to be the place I have decide…

>creating a hackernews but not for AI

With the quality of modern AI this really isn't possible. Or as someone else said "There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists"

On the internet a community is almost always growing or dying, there is no real inbetween. Communities that make the news do so because those sites are accessible. The problem is being accessible to humans ensures that bots will show up and cause problems, so now you have the added responsibility of moderation and spam control which involves politics at the end of the day.

Re: How the AI bubble ate Y Combinator

#194

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

pixl97 wrote: post #189
pessimizer wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an enormous amount to discuss about "open source," and it's neglected enough that the bro generation of programmers doesn't even understand it, or the difference between it and Free software, and what those differences materially mean to developers and the public at large. The reason that HN is eaten up by LLMs is because it's eaten by any trendy topic that's in the mainstream news. HN used to be directed by…

Even if pg where here to do so, it wouldn't happen the way you think it would. Open source got ate by AWS and closed behind paid for services. We had those discussions in the past, we lost, the market spoke. Moreso the internet evolved into something we don't like. In the early days it wasn't that hard to have an energetic conversation because you were having conversations with real people at their digression. Yes, t…

Man this is really a great comment that I just read and I agree soo much about the maybe a rebirth of Foss that targets our base instincts can arise.

I think that a very solid (energetic) discussion can take place on that too and its just a pleasure that even now, to me, this is full of energy and maybe mimics a sense of spirit of that energy the parent comment was referring to.

I actually wanted to share that energy and I really read this comment and recorded myself a video of reading this whole text from start just to reach your post which I know isn't going to get anywhere but I just wanted this message to be beyond this thread. It definitely gave me some new insights and was a fun exercise in making me less shy around the camera. I want to create memes like burialgoods/anything to really spread this message in sorts and other messages too regarding open source. There is so much to be done :)

But I also want to do it in a hopeful way, we can come with terms on things, we should and try to advocate for the rebirth of Foss as you say.

It genuinely makes one feel a bit hopeless but I think that the approach of looking at the uncomfortable and then still wanting a rebirth/fighting for it is something worth looking for in our lifetimes.

Re: How the AI bubble ate Y Combinator

#195

Post by ryandrake »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #76
SoftTalker wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like every existing SaaS and Enterprise platform is. It's just a new checkbox that you must have.

Why almost lie though? Like, if I am a company and I integrate AI just to say to my investors that I got AI so that they can not feel FOMO is utterly bonkers and well, I don't know but the investors definitely don't sound reasonable and I think that the people who are somehow lending money to these investors who are investing on such basis definitely need to think about their life choices if the company in their port…

I don't think anyone anywhere on the totem pole: from the junior engineer, to the engineering manager, to the founder, to the VC, to the investors, cares if it's actually AI. They just want to see the word there. Someone got it into their head that "AI is the thing now" and now the junior engineer isn't going to get hired unless he says AI. The Eng manager is not going to get promoted unless he talks about managing AI. The Founder is not going to be funded unless he says the company relates to AI. The VC is not going to line up investors unless he says AI. And investors have no clue what to do with their money, but heard somewhere that "AI is the thing now" and that's where they want to flush their money.

Nobody really wants any of this shit as a product.

Re: How the AI bubble ate Y Combinator

#196

Post by bilekas »

claudiulodro wrote: post #188
bilekas wrote: post #31

"How paid subscriptions ate the spread of information" I can't subscribe to another site and seems the archive link is not working for me either. Would love to read it though because while YCombinator just follows where they see the money being, AI has really seen the majority of investment recently. https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/industry/investing Just doing a search for "AI" its clear there is a preference.…

> "How paid subscriptions ate the spread of information" The "irony" here is that news organizations are moving to gate their content precisely because that's the only effective technique for preventing AI crawlers from ingesting it all ...

So we as the real people have to pay because the AI might consume it ? If you believe the AI isn't consuming those paywalled articles also, I have a bridge to sell you.

Re: How the AI bubble ate Y Combinator

#197

Post by ragall »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #179
pessimizer wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an enormous amount to discuss about "open source," and it's neglected enough that the bro generation of programmers doesn't even understand it, or the difference between it and Free software, and what those differences materially mean to developers and the public at large. The reason that HN is eaten up by LLMs is because it's eaten by any trendy topic that's in the mainstream news. HN used to be directed by…

That is an insight that my age simply didn't bring. I am not sure about the accuracy of it as I was there after the AI era and I have only seen the slow but steady creep of it. > This place used to make stories, not just Digg them This does give me goosebumps. Honestly, I like this place because it has a lot of nice people and we are more alike and different and it's just that this seems to be the place I have decide…

> This does give me goosebumps.

In earlier times, Slashdot used to make stories.

Re: How the AI bubble ate Y Combinator

#198

Post by hsuduebc2 »

SJC_Hacker wrote: post #159
hsuduebc2 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, AI can actually be useful. Crypto projects at one point were tokenizing every random idea, and unsurprisingly most of it turned into scams. Is there any relevant crypto product that truly works differently than just being a tool to buy other coins, apart from Polymarket?

Some sites, especially international, accept crypto in lieu of other payments like credit card. Useful especially if you aren't 100% on the site. You just pay them and don't worry about overcharging or having to dispute payments, etc.

You are right. I actually know people that pay for "fake" streaming accounts through some coins so they can watch Netflix or HBO. Usual cards get blocked there.

We'll it's nice to see usage of crypto(semi anonymous payments) for it's original purpose at least somewhere.

Re: How the AI bubble ate Y Combinator

#199

Post by ragall »

tedggh wrote: post #123

The article starts by assuming there’s an AI bubble. Then it goes to label all these startups as AI companies. This is how they are categorized (2025 batch only): AI Agents (15%) Productivity/Ops Tools (11.4%) AI Infrastructure (10%) Healthcare (10%) Consumer Apps (9.3%). We cannot argue that AI infrastructure is AI, but what about say back office automation and healthcare? Are these AI companies? Or are they automat…

If a company's supposed advantage is predicated on using LLMs, it's an AI company. Of course, if that strategy fails, it could pivot to a non-AI approach which would make it cease to be an AI company.

Re: How the AI bubble ate Y Combinator

#200

Post by jacquesm »

Macha wrote: post #124
minimaxir wrote: post #121

It's funny because it's causing a tragedy of the commons where there are so many AI startups that YC is funding companies that compete with each other. Case in point, the the PearAI incident a year ago where a YC company forked and rebranded an open source repo from another YC company against its license: https://unfashionable.blog/p/yc/ HN thread on the apology: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41701265 Speaking…

Is placing bets on competing companies that against YC's business model? Like I'd assume the best case for YC's business model is to pick a winner, fund them, sell off at the company's peak, then find a competitor likely to unseat them and fund that competitor so they can enjoy the profits of capturing the same market again.

For many investors that's a bridge they will not cross because it will always lead to conflicts of interest.
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