First time reader. The definition of technology seems very narrow --- almost exclusive to the entertainment. I don't think e.g. an optimized GEMM on GPUs or SQL query would be covered in this article.
For context, initially HackerNews was a site for startups, so the topics were generally along the lines of "using tech to make something people want" (People will debate what the site was about. I came here for startup stuff 2-4 months after it started. Ask PG)
Later on it switched to the more generic "Things hackers are interested in" (Once again, I'm generalizing)
So at the time, we were all swimming around in the question "How do we build things that people use a lot?" After a few years of that, I started wondering what would happen if we got what we wanted -- people using our stuff a lot without, perhaps, being able to look back years later and feel like they had spent their time wisely.