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Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

arthurcnops.blog

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Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#3
Reminds me of the quote: "Nobody Goes There Anymore, It’s Too Crowded"

Some of it is "I wish things I think are cool got more upvotes". Fare enough, I've seen plenty of things I've found cool not get much attention. That's just the nature of the internet.

The other point is show and share HN stories growing in volume, which makes sense since it's now considerably easier to build things. I don't think that's a bad thing really, although curation makes it more difficult. Now that pure agentic coding has finally arrived IMO, creativity and what to build are significantly more important. They always were but technical ability was often rewarded much more heavily. I guess that sucks for technical people.

Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#4
I am a major advocate for AI assisted development.

Having said that, it used to feel part of an exclusive club to have the skills and motivation to put a finished project on HN. For me, posting a Show HN was a huge deal - usually done after years of development - remember that - when development of something worthwhile took years and was written entirely by hand?

I don't mind much though - I love that programming is being democratized and no longer only for the arcane wizards of the back room.

Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#6
Perhaps it's the right moment to start an AI Show HN (Vibe HN as recommended above), as I assume more than half of Show HN is now from ChatGPT/Claude, and it's impossible to cut through this noise with something reliable that humans craft over years.

It's fair to give the audience a choice to learn about an AI-created product or not.

Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#9

I did a Show HN a few years ago on another account. It got no upvotes but that website/app has generated over $6m in revenue in that time (over $4.5m profit). Not sure what my point is but thought I'd share

what channel did you find success in?

Re: Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning

#10
I don't actually mind AI-aided development, a tool is a tool and should be used if you find it useful, but I think the vibe coded show HN projects are overall pretty boring. They generally don't have a lot of work put into them, and as a result, the author (pilot?) hasn't generally thought too much about the problem space, and so there isn't really much of a discussion to be had.

The cool part about pre-AI show HN is you got to talk to someone who had thought about a problem for way longer than you had. It was a real opportunity to learn something new, to get an entirely different perspective.

I feel like this is what AI has done to the programming discussion. It draws in boring people with boring projects who don't have anything interesting to say about programming.

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