[cmplxconjugate]

I wouldn’t really say the visual aspect of HN really puts people off. I would argue that it’s more a function of discussion topics being more niche and technical.

Ultimately the worst situation is when replies can consist of only a “joke” or meme (worst of all… a gif). Discussion is destroyed and instead replaced with a delta function; a single impulse response. “Click and move on”.

[glimshe]

GIFs require too much work, nowadays you only get a reaction - if you are lucky!

Usenet was also niche and technical in the beginning, but that changed over time. Maybe the answer is multifaceted; Hacker News is a bit ugly, has a large percentage of technical users, strong moderation and lack of "low effort" features such as inline images, GIF libraries, reactions etc.

[antupis]

same thing happens at Reddit more niche topic -> better content. There is mainstream, then there is kinda messy middle where people are gatekeeping and it is kinda elitist place but when you go down enough in rabbit hole people start being just happy that you are sharing this hobby or topic of interest together.