Interesting article. Ignoring the outlier, stories have at best a 1 in 3 chance of succeeding on HN. This means 2/3 of the interesting stories passing through HN are lost, and I could potentially triple my high quality reading material. It is amazing how much good content there is out there that I will never find.
Don't fall victim to FOMO (fear of missing out). If something is important enough you'll hear about it anyway, if not then it's whimsy. Think of it like when you go to a restaurant, sometimes you choose a meal but you notice other people eating things that look more interesting which you are now too full to try. It's possible you'll never been able to eat at that restaurant again (eg if you're on vacation or it's the…
That's your mistake right there.