[Karrot_Kream]

Yeah that’s roughly been my read too. I think the audience of the site changed. The user base has grown significantly. The site has gone from being about hacking (“hey here’s an empty desk”) to the culture of hackers at large (“tech was a mistake when it got invaded by VC hucksters”.)

TFA’s sentiment decrease tracks very closely with the huge uptick in user creation that started in 2022. HN isn’t really a tech site anymore, it’s about vibes. That makes sense given that in 2024 there’s a million places online talking about tech so HN only has its culture to distinguish itself. This wasn’t the case in 2008. The vibes here, along with the older demographics of the site, are increasingly nostalgic and cynical.

It'll all probably go the same way as Slashdot did which went through the same cycle (replace "VC huckster" with "Microsoft" and "surveillance capitalism" with "three letter agencies") until it too gets replaced by a site/community with energetic younger users creating new things.