Just look at the contents of the front page. It's no longer Hacker News, it's mainstream Tech News with a bit of nerdy sprinkle. The older audience is heavily diluted with those who push pseudo-tech cruft (like a woman suing a VC) to the front page, the same people who also comment more and don't really get the spirit of the board. HN is at its tipping point. I am eagerly waiting for HN2... that's assuming one hasn't been started already and kept private.
http://news.ycombinator.com/classic shows what the frontpage would look like if we only counted the votes of people who joined HN in the first year. It looks pretty much the same.
I just want to say, I don't respect this sort of lazy elitism.
We all talk about scaling our companies, or scaling our technical systems, but when it comes to scaling a social system, are we really just going to throw in the towel and point fingers like we're in junior high?
We can do better than that. It's a hard problem, but isn't that what we're here for? Come up with a solution and quit whining.
Perhaps HN is at the tipping point that killed Digg? I hope not. Or at least that PG enforces his right to ban people over comments that can only be described as hash and not constructive.