With Show HN vs a regular submission you're shoved on shownew, which gets a lot less eyeballs than new. If you get enough votes, you're supposedly moved from shownew to top stories, but somehow 5 votes wasn't enough for me (though I saw other posts that got there with just 2). I'd like to see someone attempt to persuade me otherwise, but I really don't see the value in using the Show HN: prefix.
I do personally check out shownew quite often, yet I would never really visit new. I might not be a typical user, but I think I am a lot more likely to engage with a shownew post than someone who comes across it on new.
Huh, didn’t know about shownew. But looking at it now, wow. That’s a *lot* of AI slop. Probably makes it even harder to get into new.
> With Show HN vs a regular submission you're shoved on shownew, which gets a lot less eyeballs than new
I don't think that's right, it's visible in both places, it's not "either or". Currently /new shows 5 "Show HN"s, which are also visible on /shownew.
> but I really don't see the value in using the Show HN: prefix.
You get a lot more traffic over a longer period of time, but best of all, the users who engage with you are in a different mindset for the "Show HN" posts.
On a normal submission, you get a whole range of top-level posts that are mostly tangible related to the topic at hand. It's basically a free-for-all, as long as it's at least a bit related to the submission's theme and topic.
On "Show HN" posts you get users who view it and comment about it as a way of providing feedback what they think of the idea itself, and its implementation. Completely different mood and input, that is much more about what you're actually sharing, than a submission.
That's my experience of "Show HN" at least, YMMV.