petenixey

Back in the day code compilation was a greenlight to hop over onto the web and read. Then everything got really quick and us devs had to keep our noses to the grindstone.

Now the actual freaking code is written for us I can only assume that more of us are off in search of interim entertainment hits.

Is that translating into increased traffic to Hacker News?

I've been coming to Hacker News since 2005. Over that time it's grown by many orders of magnitude.

The quality of the links has fluctuated but on the whole have stayed strong and, if anything, improved over time. I don't know what the filtering process is but it works well - the articles feel pure and deeply interesting.

But the comments are trickier. As the size of the audience has grown, so have the number of comments. Which has the potential to be really interesting, except for the propensity of the UI to drive both readers and commenters deep into rabbitholes.

I used to love seeing the breadth of reactions to an article (or a new company). I could scan the comments to see what Hacker News thought. I quickly could get an idea of different perspectives and opinions. I could absorb the reaction of the Silicon Valley Coding Diaspora.

These days though it feels, at best, a deep, cloistered exploration of one POV, and at worst a triggered cascade of pedantry.

There are still amazing people and amazing observations in there. But they're not easy to get to. There's no easy way to scan the comments to get a sense of the breadth of reaction - it's just a case of wading through all of them.

Back when I was in my 20s and soaking up everything I possibly could, I would happily invest that time. These days it doesn't feel like such a good trade-off.

And I fear that in turn that penalises the potential breadth of reaction that this remarkable audience posesses. And reduces the participation of others who have less time - many of whom are more senior (decide for yourself whether you value that perspective).

If I could wave a wand, I'd love to see the threads collapsed by default. I feel like there are lot of potential UI wins that could further broaden engagement.

Would love to hear everyone else's thoughts...

(Also... and I'm sure I'm thousandth person to ask this... how on earth is it that there is no dark mode to this dev-mecca?!)