[logicallee]

what will really blow your mind is that thirty years from now some wise-ass will do the same with hackernews, and everyone will laugh at how shitty it looked, and that this is the group that built $10 billion companies from nothing but scrappiness, making something people want, and shipping.

Let's admit it. HN is not a highly polished web UI - there's not even thread collapsing. It works because it doesn't matter; we're communicating and sharing wisdom.

And for you wise-asses from the future: THIS IS NOT THE BEST WE CAN DO IN TERMS OF UI. Just like there were cutting-edge films in 1984 with lots of visual effects, we could have a much richer interface today if we wanted. We're not primitive - we don't care! In fact, future wise-ass, what have YOU built today? Why not pick a problem and solve it rather than snickering at the ancient past :)

[ilyanep]

I think the UI actually works for HN in the same way it worked for reddit back in the day. A very minimalistic interface lets the content be king and scares away people who aren't interested enough in the content itself.

The one thing I will agree with you on is thread collapsing, but I've installed a Chrome add-on that lets me do that.

[cothomps]

The great thing about USENET was (and well, is) that news is a protocol so you could choose from a few different clients if the UX for one was horrible. Not a panacea, but it was nice to have that kind of competition.

[dredmorbius]

Thread collapsing (I've got that plugin installed as well), and swapping the lighter / darker portions of the background colors for improved readability and contrast.

If you've got the Stylebot plugin, this CSS:

http://stylebot.me/styles/2945