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I signed up back in 2009, so almost 9 years ago now. I've been frequently telling myself since then that I should cut down, and quit using it for a while. I always end up using it again. The reason I use it is that sometimes there's a link posted to something genuinely novel, fascinating, and/or perception-shattering. Likewise, sometimes a comment will be deep, insightful and/or informative on a poorly-known topic. These are what bring me back. But, most often, the community is prickly, fad-driven, and increasingly conformist. It's always been a mix. I don't think it's actually gone downhill - I think the metric of quality has changed. The new moderation team has cracked down on overt rudeness and trolling. However, the userbase has shifted - it's larger now and more dominated by employees than entrepreneurs. That leads to a narrowing of opinion. The tech industry has also become much more high-profile, and everyone is hyper-aware of the media criticism of startup culture. Once upon a time people would express controversial opinions and expect at least a fair hearing - it felt like a friendly gathering of smart friends. Now, it feels like people standing on soapboxes shouting to a hostile crowd. People like Sebastian Marshall (https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=lionhearted) used to be top posters here, and he's no longer active -- and I doubt he'd go down well with the current crowd. Steady changes in the userbase like that change the vibe in hard-to-define ways, but it's definitely changed. |
1. I've just come off a call with a university friend who is now a manager at a big startup out in China, working on a really ambitious side project, and building tons of relationships out in the Asian startup world. I used to hang out with tons of people like that, then I had some bad life experiences, and disconnected from many good parts of my life. At the same time I got sucked back into HN procrastination.
2. Even times when I'm not producing or meeting interesting people, I have a stack of interesting stuff to read. Sebastian Marshall, who I mentioned above, has this amazing "Strategic Review" series, of which I've only read a fraction. There is never a single second of my day when HN is the most valuable thing I could be doing.
3. For the last 2 years I've had a second account under a pseudonym where I could be more outspoken about my political beliefs. (Hopefully at least a few people followed links I've posted from this account, or that other account, and learned something). Aside from the timesink aspect, the reason I'm leaving HN now is because it's become way too much of a political echo chamber.
I can cope with a place that's dominated by liberal/progressives, but not when they take a haughty, dismissive tone towards anyone who disagrees with them. (E.g: commenter takes a controversial stance, people who reply jump to the worst possible interpretation of their words).
To be clear I'm not remotely any kind of alt-rightist, Trumpkin, Milo fanboy or anything like that. I have tons of idiosyncratic opinions based on years of living abroad and reading every thinker I could get my hands on. People like me usually find their way into fringe communities of similar people -- and then slowly see those communities colonised and turn conformist, and leave to find somewhere else. It's a constant search to stay ahead of the world.
4. HN comment threads are usually noise, but one super interesting thing to do is read the comment history of an interesting poster. lionhearted I mentioned above, https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=bane is another good guy to "follow". As was https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=michaelochurch, though he went a bit nuts for a few years. Deep in my comment history I'm in a thread with Aaron Schwartz (on Austrian economics!), which illustrates the unusual paths that cross on this site.
Aside from that, I'm done here.