[sleepdev]

For me, self submissions are a large part of the reason why Hacker News is interesting. A lot of smart people come here to share their thoughts. Without that we would only have the Times blogs which aren't hard to find in the first place.

I am by no means representative of the Hacker News community, but I would guess that other people would say something similar.

[oomkiller]

Plus when you submit something, you get the feedback of the hivemind, which is usually quite thoughtful.