How I built an online community | Hacker News Reader

How I built an online community

indiehackers.com

The goal of a community shouldn't be SEO, getting acquired, branding or any of the author's points, really. "Back in the day", communities existed to bring like-minded people together around a shared interest, full stop.

The author is describing how to build a community that you can sell, not how to build a community whose netizens enjoy being part of.

I found indie hackers kinda cool back in the days.

Some stories about devs who made a living by building their idea or people who learned to code to do their thing. An alternative to the whole VC backed big selling start-ups.

Now it seems to be filled with some kind of strange side-hustle people who want to make a quick "passive" buck :/

Is there something true about the idea that nerdy things get ruined by becoming cool and profitable? AFAIK I always see the same story in the world with communities that make the leap from harshly criticized -> fringe-cool (for lack of a better word); the next step is -> mainstream cool + vultures sweep in to make money.

Computer games: nerdy/uncool -> cool/dominated by passionate developers -> corporate money-making conveyor-belt development & profits > quality

Gay communities: pariahs -> cool place to live/college students -> money-making developments, gentrification & profits > communal destruction

SV, Portland and Seattle have also been described this way. Online communities as well.

People looking to make money often essentially strip mine the uniqueness of a place and the influx of people fundamentally changes the culture. I don't think it always makes it worse but if you like a place as it is it would seem reasonable to generally dislike change

Reminds me of something I read a while ago - describing just what you mean:

https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths

How big/active was this community exactly? It seems like a content/media site, rather than a community, unless I'm missing something.

Yeah, I agree with this. Built with Shopify seems like a decent service, but it's not really the sort of 'community' I or most people would think about when they hear the word used. It's more like a blog that does interviews with people if anything else, with the community side being less of a focus than the written articles. The community aspect is basically meaningless there.

Instead, I feel it would have been more interesting to see an article like this about running a forum or social media site akin to Twitter or Reddit. A site where you can't just fall back on the efforts of one person where you struggle, and where the users are front and centre with their work being key to the site's success.

Indiehackers is a great community. If you are on the forums, there is some really great help being given.

We had a meetup in NYC this past summer with Channing and a few of the others that were local like Zack from CodeforCash and Cory from OppsDaily

I don't see a community here. This is more like a curated list of interviews.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com