The inequality can sting if you compare yourself to others.
HN is probably the largest general purpose public forum frequently visited by multi-millionaires and multi-billionaires, so there's always somebody blabbing on about their "investments" or humble bragging about exiting or buying a tesla or some other rich person nonsense.
The onslaught of dumb can sting when you realize most people just forcefully repeat the opinions of others without much original thought.
If you read for "what's new" information, it can be marginally useful. But, the "what's new" is filtered through the bubble of what isolated nerd people think matters (containers! go! san francisco! google upgraded their toilets!) and not necessarily where the biggest opportunities or impacts can be had in the world these days.
But, even with all that, there's still a lot of good information people provide. People will chime in and kindly offer their experiences and personal knowledge about specific or esoteric things with the rest of us who don't know as much as they do.
It's just casual life differences accumulating over time. They may not even notice it's strange to others since it's just how their life works now.
Somebody who has been an employee at 4 successful startups over 10 years has different life patterns ("yeah, I'm an employee, but I'm also an LP in some VC funds and I angel invest on the side and take advisor shares every few months") than someone who has also worked at startups for 10 years but every previous startup they worked for failed or no longer exists.
"Oh, you cashed out some stock during your startup's latest funding round and now you're complaining your Tesla order is being delayed by two months? I'm soooo sorry. What's new with me? Thanks for asking! I got a yearly salary increase of 0.5% again this year, which doesn't in any way cover the 15% yearly rent increase on my apartment. Enjoy your new $100,000 car while I scrape together another $300/month for rent I don't have."
Its not obvious nor is it as common as the GP makes it seem.
For a concrete example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10410723 -- A thread in which some guy asks about renting a Skylake-based server. When I read it originally it already had 3 people telling to build it himself as though a $1000 system is loose change you people in SV find down the back of your couch.
Yes it is addictive, I have an everyday urge to check what's going on HN, I also feel I'm earning some IQ points here, of course I loose these points later, but that has to do with me ;)
I feel like the content submitted has been on the decline, particularly in comparison to content submitted even just two years ago. I must be on the HN-decline equivalent of a nicotine patch.
HN is probably the largest general purpose public forum frequently visited by multi-millionaires and multi-billionaires, so there's always somebody blabbing on about their "investments" or humble bragging about exiting or buying a tesla or some other rich person nonsense.
The onslaught of dumb can sting when you realize most people just forcefully repeat the opinions of others without much original thought.
If you read for "what's new" information, it can be marginally useful. But, the "what's new" is filtered through the bubble of what isolated nerd people think matters (containers! go! san francisco! google upgraded their toilets!) and not necessarily where the biggest opportunities or impacts can be had in the world these days.
But, even with all that, there's still a lot of good information people provide. People will chime in and kindly offer their experiences and personal knowledge about specific or esoteric things with the rest of us who don't know as much as they do.