[nickbee]

HN was designed for a small audience, and it intentionally did things to discourage growth. The goal was to preserve the community for longer.

[alistairSH]

I understand the reason. That doesn't make it any less hostile to users with poor eye-sight.

[krapp]

If Hacker News wanted to discourage growth, they should have made the forum private and invite only.

There was never any real chance of this forum going mainstream, not because it was too ugly and awkward but because it didn't have any mainstream appeal. Negative reinforcements like making the text purposely difficult to read mostly just punish existing users.

[nickbee]

Are you sure HN isn't mainstream? It's up to 19 million items.

[krapp]

How many millions of users does it have?