[pbourke]

The big difference I see between HN, Reddit, and traditional message boards on one hand and Facebook/Twitter/Instagram style social media on the other is the relative prominence of personalities vs topics. HN/Reddit/boards are topic focused, whereas the other social media sites are personality focused, with the specific accounts that you follow determining your overall experience of the site and the topics that you are shown. In order to have an experience on those latter sites you must connect yourself into the graph.