[acgourley]

Humans are built to socialize in meat space. I've been on HN since about the beginning. I have met... two people through it that I now consider friends. I've met so many more outside of it, it's hard to even compare the two concepts.

[zanny]

I think you are comparing nuts and bolts. HN and its other popularity-forum colleagues like reddit are not very conductive to network building or long term friendship forging. Your interaction with me, for example, is at most reading this post, maybe reading my comment history (1 in a million) and either replying with your own take on what I wrote, or moving on. There is no commonality there besides the discussion topic and the means of communication, and the dialog ends instantly when you are done posting.

I made most of my current online-friends in video games, mainly WoW, some in rpgs like Neverwinter Nights, some from my emulator days. I think it is the difference between a shared hobby and interest in it you can talk about outside the discussion channels, and the blurred lines between what HN topically discusses - since it is usually all about startups and VC and tech, it is very business driven rather than hobby driven, even when you get a fair bit of hobbyist and OT threads at the top, the culture, expectations, and environment stay the same.