alt Hacker NewsGoing back two years on Hacker News is like entering another, better universe
Comments
I don't know, the frontpage looks fine today?
- Canada payment system - folding paper airplanes - Solar panels - Raspberry pi price increases - a bunch of show hns - how does malloc work
There are more AI posts that's for sure, but it's also not that bad? It's also heavily affecting the livelihood of many people here (for better and often worse), so it's reasonable that it would be prevalent.
There's always been grumpy engineers here, on stackoverflow, reddit, everywhere. Lots of grumpy engineers are also amazing engineers. There's newbies proud to show something, even though it's not really always that great, some people dunk, some people encourage etc.
I still like it here.
Perhaps it's time to update the Reddit comparison blurb in the HN guidelines, because it seems unarguably true, to me.
Almost everything in the new submissions is about AI and has been for a while now. Same with the links you see. It's getting to the point where non-AI tech news and information is completely drowned out. Stepping back month by month you can see how the AI content increases exponentially. Soon it'll be all you can read about it unless something is done. Perhaps a yc.ai site for AI-related news and discussion?
It's the natural progression of websites like this. Reddit went through the same progression: it was very positive and felt like a community when the migration from Digg first happened. 10 years ago, Hacker News felt like an insider website for professionals. It still does, but there's definitely an uptick in negativity.
Is it really a different universe than going back one year:
https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2025-11-08
or, for that matter, one month?
https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2026-10-08
Similar perceptions have been around since before Hacker News was even named Hacker News (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852).
In some ways, I think that's true, especially with AI. But, as another commenter pointed out, before that it was crypto stuff. So, popular things are discussed a lot. I personally think that's ok.
And, regarding AI, it's profoundly changed our lives especially for software devs. And we are in the infancy stages so there is a lot new and trying to be figured out still. So while it is somewhat fatiguing to see so much AI stuff, I actually welcome it. I've learned a lot here because of it.
Finally, while there is some tension in the comments, and a decent amount of negativity and pessimism in the comments, there are usually high quality comments that get voted up and people who are violating the guidelines often get voted down. Which makes me feel like the community as a majority still cares a lot about keeping HN reasonable.
I spend a lot of time here because I like it here. There is a lot of good and the bad is reasonable/manageable for me. I especially appreciated all the love for TNG and Patrick Stewart when he passed. My family doesn't share my affinity but it was clear a lot of the HN community did. I was comforted.
I don't like that flagging can be abused (IMO example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50366250) but it's also used for good so there, again, is balance.
Thanks HN for being "my peeps". I don't really have any other group that I'd say that about.
I find HN to be extremely variable by submission:
The more general or mainstream or meta, the more reddit-like posts there are.
The more technical or mathematical or niche, the less.
I don't see material differences between HN from 5 years ago and now.
Maybe 15 years ago HN was a truly different forum. The "tech" world was much smaller then, making this little corner of web rather esoteric and only of interest to an educated audience.
Additionally, there was still techno-optimism in the late 2000's and early 2010's so you'd have more positive comments and less American politics. 2016 always struck me as the turning point, not just for HN but for most of the web.
I'm not a technical guy like most here, but this place has helped me think about making more productive comments. Appreciate the guidance, hope you can keep making this website the way you want.
Maybe someone could "fork" the website and leave the negativity behind? Like a "Hacker News - Politics" to quarantine those sorts of discussions?
It'd be great if there was an axe taken to the negativity around HN.
The mods are proactive though, and it's a high quality place to get insights into the "content behind the content". It's a great source of a lot of realizations about tech and life.
Should write some of them down...
Relentless negativity drives away people who aren't relentlessly negative. I am dropping in this week after a while being away and my impression is that people got more distant and cynical while I was gone. I'm working on a solo project right now but I can't imagine posting about it here where people seem to want to only find reasons to tear builders down for not doing things their way.
From most people I talk to, there is an understanding that the overwhelm of AI content, bot comments, etc. has degraded the quality of community spaces (especially HN but also including Reddit, X/Twitter, etc.). I hope we can figure out a way to get more human-curated content soon and make the economics of amplifying it make sense (obviously it does not in this current transition chapter).
HN reached it's Eternal September[1] a while back (probably ~2yrs ago).
I'm a (vocal) proponent of AI (as applied to software development) and even I think, and have been saying all year, that the amount of AI stuff on the front page is unfortunate. It's not a mystery why anyone would think 2-years-ago HN was more fun than today's!
But it's not an easy thing to intervene on. AI is neck and neck with "the Internet" for impact on technology.
Now that we can build (with Claude's help) sites like Karpathy's HackerTube, Hacker<add your focus here>, etc., what would be another interesting "Show HN:" type of analytics to build around the massive HN data, say focused on the zeitgeist of HN over time?
Wow, no kidding. It's almost entirely AI free. A lot more interesting.
Agree that tech was more exciting when AI wasn't in the fold, but it's also true that the tech industry and SF in particular was facing headwinds economically. Without AI there even have been a recession.
So the question is: is it fine for SF to rebound and money to spent on a revolutionary tech, at the expense of human ingenuity and possibly our entire industry?
I feel it's noticeably better on weekends, when people aren't at work sending stories.
I find it funny that the linked date features a story about the FDA proposing to maybe halt sales of the completely useless "drug" phenylephrine (Sudafed PE, etc). Here we are 2 years later and still zero action.
MODS ITS HAPPENING AGAIN BANISH HIM TO THE NULL SPACE (this is obviously a joke, HN is still the best place I've found for information I care about if anyone has found another one I'd be happy to check it out.)
People have been making the same complaint as long as I've been here, which is now seventeen years.
I love that the comments are exchanging ways to avoid the most important thing that has ever happened in computing.
Eh? I think there was a brief timeframe of Too Much AI Related Crap, but the last few months, the front page feels better to me; HN is still one of my favorite news sources.
The comments - I don't really see any kind of "Reddit"ification (the complaint so common it's in the rules!), but there is an annoying tendency towards baseless conspiracy theories lately that annoys me as a professional RE, especially since with LLMs reverse engineering is easier than ever before. Every story about a product release, a cell phone, or anything related to cryptography is loaded with "XYZ entity did this for ZYX comically evil reason," with absolutely no research, facts, or evidence in that direction. Hell, I think the top-voted comment on the "Claude found the nothing-up-our-sleeve randoms from ECDSA" was "it's still an NSA conspiracy!!!"
HN has gone through several Genre Eras of "weird annoying" comments though (that I can remember, there was a suck-up-to-PG era, a "random NRX/Dark Enlightenment Crap" era, etc.), so I think the Everything Is A Corporate Conspiracy era is just our latest phase.
It really was, wasn't it.
But then, there was a cryptocurrency frenzy here, too, at one point, and this can't be worse.
Yes. HN has slowly turned into the reasons I left reddit. Every topic turning into politics, pure hate and outrage. Massive number of negative sentiment posts. I was going to reddit and leaving angry. Increasingly I'm coming to HN and leaving angry. I don't want that and if it doesn't change soon I'll have to stop coming here to.
Banning links in signatures from public discussions was a mistake. Back when people had their own website it was easy to see what kind of person they are. It was also worth it to write lengthy well researched posts to promote your business. Work without compensation? Even if you want to it isn't actually worth the time.
The day I saw HN being linked on mainstream blogs, such as MacRumors - I knew this community was reaching its breaking point on having good conversations again. HN used to be a nice escape for me to have some technical brain teasers, now I see so many hate comments it just makes me upset and no longer feel engaged anymore.
I'm tired of political/social manifestos as part of the README.md files in github repositories for packages have no choice but to use. I'm tired of command line package manager tools asking for Ukraine support from my command line.
It's literally with every single subject involving a computer. Writing, coding, designing, music, art, cad, io etc. every conversation is with the word AI. I think I hear the word at least 100 time per day.
Yep, the site is overwhelmingly either news about AI, or someone's "look what I made with AI" posts, neither of which is interesting. I miss when people in the computer business actually enjoyed doing cool stuff with computers instead of making everything revolve around the slop machine.
Is there something like HN but with more of a practical engineering focus and less fomo hype-train business scam guy stuff?
Now try go back 10..
Perhaps Big Tech/Silicon Valley has turned the corner from being a positive force in the lives of people, to being a negative entity in their lives?
Having been on the receiving end from both dang and tomhow as to how this discussion is "off topic", the "guidelines have been consistent for many years", and "if you have any concerns email us at hn@ycombi..." my genuine answer is: migrate to lobste.rs and the handful of other places. The moderation here has not been good even in light of all the praise they have gotten. This is not a "the ball was dropped yesterday" situation. The ball has been dropping for a long time now, and whenever someone brings it up, it's looked down upon. That's okay, we'll go and play in another sandbox then.
I have a list of suggestions that would have a noticeable improvement on HN, and some of it has been implemented to success (and detriment) elsewhere. But that list is highly unlikely to even be attempted here, until it is too late and much like the Digg->Reddit situation, the barn doors have been left open for too long.
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The problem is society-wide.
https://data.worldhappiness.report/chart
Basically the US line will keep trending down until widespread understanding of what Europe has already figured out: society needs more supportive mechanisms (healthcare, gun control, job security, low inequality, free higher education, walkable cities etc etc etc).
We are social animals. Individual happiness depends on your bank account, sure, but crucially also on your neighbor's happiness.
I used to love reading the HN comments. When there was a new tool or technology being discussed there would almost certainly be someone who directly worked on it, if not the founder themselves, giving further insight and welcoming discussion. And when there was back and forth discussion, it was people clarifying their questions and answers, and sharing their expertise. Now it’s just Reddit-style comment sections of people picking at each other.