[ThrowawayR2]

No conspiracy is needed. HN is attracting more and more new users who enjoy making low quality posts on hot button topics, which also triggers other previously well-behaved users to make low quality posts in response. This behavior naturally spreads outside of hot button topics to ordinary submissions.

[dang]

It isn't new users who are making most low-quality comments. It's mostly people who've been here for years and should know better.

Sometimes they make new accounts, of course, especially if we've banned them many times - but even those (what you could call) bad actors are not the bulk of the problem. The bulk of the problem is (what you could call) normal users, who would probably be surprised to find this out, since it's human nature to see such problems as caused by others, not self.

[reaperducer]

HN is attracting more and more new users who enjoy making low quality posts on hot button topics, which also triggers other previously well-behaved users to make low quality posts in response.

Posting a "hot take" on HN was unheard of for a very long time. Now people do it regularly with no shame.

I've never really understood why people write those, and even less why people read them. It's admitting from the outset that you don't know what you're talking about. Why embarrass yourself? Why waste your own time?

[dang]

I think you guys are succumbing to a nostalgia-filtered view of HN's past.

[NaOH]

An unspoken inference from when you've made posts like this is that HN has largely only changed in terms of scale, that the overall community culture has been relatively static. What are the indicators that would catch your attention to indicate a cultural shift, whether they are improving the site or diminishing it?

[rswail]

Rose colored glasses are just a manual version of f.lux

But more seriously, I mentioned the "dotcom boom" to someone today, they didn't know what it was, because they were 2 at the time.

I had to explain it as a combination of the GFC and the current AI boom.