[xtracto]

It's pretty obvious to me: it's a sign of the aging of HN average reader. I experienced the same phenomenon in Slashdot back in the day: Comments in the first years were very interesting, constructive and enticing. As the population grew older, it started questioning everything without analysing (less space than a nomad?). Nowadays the level of the conversation there is terrible.

It is similar to what happens in the mainstream: I'm 40 years old. I see chatroulette, snapchat, ticktock and dont understand them. I could dismiss them as stupid, unnecessary and fads. But the truth is that they are new takes on old subjects that maybe I dont understand; whereas 20 years ago I was on top of what was new or yet to come.