[sporkydistance]

Why do you exclude HN from your list? It is literally social media, but with the dial turned down a little. Yet, you don't have to dig to deeply to see flamewars, outrage, and trolling. I mean, look at many of the garbage comments in this very thread that are on par with /.,xchan.

[xorvoid]

Yes, but it’s the old skool version of social media and the conversations here are generally higher quality and more genuine. I strongly disagree that it’s “on par with /.,xchan”

HN also doesn’t seem to be as susceptible to rage-baiting / outrage-attention-seeking behavior. Not sure exactly what by this is the case but I’d venture a guess it has a lot to do with (1) “dang”s moderation, and (2) not having a personalized algorithm feed.

I’m increasingly of the view that personalized algorithm feeds generated to select the maximum attention grabbing content for each person is a truly dangerous idea.

Frankly, HN is not that engaging (by modern standards). In fact, probably 60-70% of the articles on the front page are boring to me on any given day. I view this as a feature and not a bug. Why should I expect that everything I look at must be maximally engaging?

I wish more sites were old skool like HN.

[boznz]

There is still a lot of taboo subjects and comments you can make on HN, just look through your comment history on all the things downvoted to hell that you still believe are true. Like a good sheep I now refuse to defend anything that will leave me open to this.

[musicale]

A problem with downvoting on many sites (perhaps HN to some extent) is that people seem to just use it as a generic "I don't like this" button or as part of an upvote/downvote war to make sure that their preferred comment "wins."

[n144q]

I learned much from just scrolling HN. Technical articles help me know the latest updates in various areas, dive deep into a topic, or develop new skills. I applied quite a few things I learned in my job. Fundamentally, most links on HN are articles, many of which are quite long, which tend to be more focused and informative.

Completely non-technical ones are few, and you can always choose to ignore them.

The feed is also non-personalized. It's not going to show a few more article on politics just because you linked on one.

By comparison, reddit is much, much worse, almost the opposite of HN. Just a bit better than Twitter, maybe. Most of my reddit browsing/participation falls into tech/hobby, yet I always find that spend more time than I'd like on meaningless stuff, and reddit keeps pushing/promoting political content (even in the context of technology).

My solution? Don't browse reddit unless I really need to for some reason (or if I really don't have anything else to do at that time).

[JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B]

I'm here to talk about technology and it's usage. I'm not here to socialize, I don't know your name, don't care, and haven't even looked at your username. You're just a sentence to me. It's more impersonal than the old newsgroups. How is it social?

[sporkydistance]

We're literally socializing right now. We're a special interest group meeting to communicate about special interests. The opposite of socialization is isolation. If you hadn't posted, you wouldn't be socializing, but here we are, socializing.

[johnnyanmac]

Semi-anonymous community is still community. HN isn't unique there.

it's similar to how you can go to a bar and just say "I'm here to watch the game". You can be asosial in a social community.

[firecall]

I disagree with the often stated claim that HN is social media!

To me, HN is more like an online forum.

IMHO for a service to be defined as Social Media it needs to at least have a 'social graph' of some kind.

HN has never suggested an account to follow, or tried to suggest trending posts or topics to me.

Yes, HN does have a voting system. But that to me doesn't make it social media. HN posts are not measured and promoted based on engagement.

[joshdavham]

> Why do you exclude HN from your list? It is literally social media

I didn't exlude it from my list. See here:

> I’ve been off of social media (aside from HN, WhatsApp and discord) for years

I did, however, leave it out of this list

> Reddit, instagram, X, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Threads, etc are all the equivalent of digital junk food

because I don't consider HN to be digital junk food.

[vaylian]

If HN is social media, then old online forums from the time before "social media" are also social media.

[Klonoar]

Well, yes.

That’s not really a gotcha statement.

[switchbak]

Sure, but it’s also not a useful distinction.

There’s a clear difference of kind between modern social media and the forums/usenet of old.

[sporkydistance]

I really would like to know what exactly you consider a "clear difference" between how Usenet and differ conceptually (e.g., ignoring the GUI, the # of users, and mechanics, [e.g., usenet updates diffused around the globe because we didn't have cloud servers]).

Please back that statement up with some facts.

[vaylian]

"social" implies that relationships between users are a core part of the platform. I can't follow another user or mark them as a "friend" on HN.

HN users put a lot less emphasis on who says something and we focus more on what they say. There are exceptions of course, because we have our own share of renowned experts posting here. But for the most part, people don't take note of what username writes a post.

[sporkydistance]

Ah, thanks. That's a good answer. I was coming at it from the discussion angle only. However, both Usenet and HN don't allow you to friend people, like other social media. I see I accidentally dropped the term HN, which makes my question unclear. I still don't see spiritual difference between HN and Usenet when framed around your response, though.

[musicale]

1. Centralized control by for-profit corporations (and their investors) chasing perpetual growth

2. Algorithms driving ever-increasing "engagement" to deliver advertising

3. Surveillance capitalism

[sporkydistance]

Sorry, I was refering to Hacker News, not all social media. My question was unclear.

1. HN is centralized, but not for-profit.

2. HN does not drive engagement, AFAIK

3. HN is not surveillance capitalism.

You haven't demonstrated how Usenet differs from HN, but since my question had a typo and omitted HN, I can see how that is confusing.

[lmm]

> There’s a clear difference of kind between modern social media and the forums/usenet of old.

No, there isn't.

[vaylian]

But that makes the term "social media" a very broad category that doesn't tell you much.

[SlackSabbath]

Yes but more importantly it's a definition that allows those who wield it to feel as though they are on the right hand side of the 'bell curve meme'.

[jbombadil]

Not GP, but feel similarly. I'll offer my 2 cents:

> but with the dial turned down a little.

Exactly for this reason. Yes, HN is a social network. And if it follows the same enshittification path as the others, I will be gone from here too. But until then, to me (YMMV) it still provides a bit of entertainment and news without rotting my brain.

Even the analogy works. Fast food is not that bad... in moderate quantities (/"with the dial turned down a little")

[seattle_spring]

HN remains distinct from Reddit almost entirely due to dang's hard work moderating the site. Spend a few minutes with showdead turned on and you'll see real quick what that site might turn into without effective moderation. The site would be full of politics and flamewars.

I believe a good portion of Reddit could have had been the same. However, the way moderators are chosen-- in other words, whoever creates the sub first gets to rule the roost-- has left that site with almost universally unqualified moderation.

[n144q]

HN has a non personalized feed. That alone distinguishes from most social media today. And that matter a LOT.