[chevill]

>anyone who has used a modern forum with all the trimmings would do the "yes, Grandpa, everything was better in the old days" polite smiling and nodding.

HN could have indeed been written in many languages, but IMO the simplicity is a strength. I'd rather be here than twitter, reddit, or any other forum. There's no dark patterns, no recommendation engines or other annoying nonsense trying to game "engagement", no ads, basically none of the things that make the modern Internet an awful user experience.