Almost all websites are pretty minimal in terms of their
features, but they're built as if they were an in-browser image
editor.
Reddit is barely more than HN with pictures and a LOT of bloat
inbetween. It could be as minimal as 4chan-style imageboards if
you add voting and a slightly different comment view.
Youtube is just a tiled list of thumbnails or an embedded video
player followed by a list of thumbnails. It could work 100%
without JS outside of the video controls. Instead it's a huge,
slow mess. It's also inconsistent; in my case it scales the
list of videos from subscriptions to about 50% of the browser
window's width, leaving a chunk of empty space on the sides. The
startpage with basically the same layout always uses the full
width.
100% agree. The kneejerk reaction of "well HN is so simple, of course it has a simple design" has the causation backwards. You only realize how simple HN is because they stick to a simple design!
99% of websites are (could be) just static text and images. Facebook, Reddit, CNN etc could look like HN. Amazon could look like craigs list. The amount of sites that actually need and are enhanced by JS bloat is very low.
A message board like HN is more difficult than you think to get right across a wide range of screen sizes, just because comments can nest many levels deep. HN arguably has problems of its own in that regard.
Reddit is barely more than HN with pictures and a LOT of bloat inbetween. It could be as minimal as 4chan-style imageboards if you add voting and a slightly different comment view.
Youtube is just a tiled list of thumbnails or an embedded video player followed by a list of thumbnails. It could work 100% without JS outside of the video controls. Instead it's a huge, slow mess. It's also inconsistent; in my case it scales the list of videos from subscriptions to about 50% of the browser window's width, leaving a chunk of empty space on the sides. The startpage with basically the same layout always uses the full width.