In many ways, I think that's already what it is. HN was created to, and still does, serve the purposes of YC. I don't know where the money comes from to keep it up and running, but I would imagine it's part of the YC operating budget.

In short, I'm sure the value it represents now is far greater than what one could garner from trying to directly monetize it. Just look at any of pgs posts - people upvote the bejeezus out of them: he can instantly and effortlessly access thousands of high quality eyeballs.

There are surely people that would pay egregious sums of money to have this kind of community in any vertical, and tech startups are pretty hot - I struggle to even fathom what could possibly constitute a fair price for jeopardizing that.

[edit: Google says it's spelled 'bejeezus']