Hacker News Reader

Comment by cal5k | Hacker News Reader

I'm disappointed to see Hacker News turning into Slashdot - immediate negative reaction to anything new, lack of empathy with the insanely difficult task the reddit management team is undertaking, and a general selfish bias of "as a power user I like obscure feature x, therefore without x they're doomed".

View on HN

Humans hate change. Our minds strive to maintain equilibrium and have an immune system like response to anything that threatens to disrupt that state. Even when we intellectually commit to change, our emotions sabotage the effort.

Cue the bereavement model and the diffusion of innovation. Successful advocates of change account for the time and effort it takes to drag people along.

Burnie Burns of Rooster Teeth phrased it as, "the internet demands progress, but hates change." I like that because it succinctly draws attention to the juxtaposition of ideals and emotional reaction.

It has always been like this. Look for the Dropbox "Show HN" thread.

"No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."

* The new thing doesn't bring any real improvements. Many UI changes, few UX changes.

* Nothing about the design was broken before and users don't really complain about it.

* Having used it, the site is noticeably slower. Turns out that shiny is expensive. And I'm on a powerful machine too.

* The UI is now more cluttered and less information dense taking a page straight from FB's playbook. They might be successful but hackers have constantly shit on the design.

* Nobody said that managing a site that large was easy, but doing nothing was always an option for them.

There is a theoretical design that would make the community salivate but this wasn't it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com