[maxbond]

I said this in a sibling comment but it felt responsive to yours, so you summarize, I think what we're finding out is a.) When the marginal cost of joining another network is 0, people will join "lower value" networks and b.) When you have enough people on the platform, the marginal value to the user of adding an additional user becomes negative - when you get to a certain scale, the new people joining are less likely to bring you additional conversation then additional trolling and harassment.

Anecdotally, HN is at a sweet spot for me. It's large enough that I'm just a person in the crowd (which I value), but it's small enough and the interaction is limited enough that I don't feel I'm likely to receive persistent, ongoing harassment. (I catch plenty of trolling, but it never feels personal really, I don't think they'll recognize me in the next thread we bump into each other.)