Hacker News Reader

Comment by quaintdev | Hacker News Reader

All this debate regarding Reddit makes me wonder do we even need these communities. HN sure has value to offer but something like Reddit and YouTube are huge waste of time. Before 2000s people lived their life without these communities. They lived without the constant influx of info and opinions from others. And it seems they were way more happy than us. Probably because they were more focused on solving their own problems than global problems. Who knows if that's exactly the thing we need to solve global problems.

None of the online communities are necessary to live a happy life, not even HN.

View on HN

> something like Reddit and YouTube are huge waste of time

When people say this I wonder, what planet are they from? When my wife and I are away from one another we get a kick out of sharing Reddit posts with each other. YouTube is one of the best ways to learn new subjects. Both platforms are a great way to stay involved in a hobby.

Hacker News is great, but it's pretty much a glorified subreddit. There's almost no difference.

And for those suggesting there are better alternatives than Reddit, what are they? Facebook? (Barf.) Reddit is doing something very annoying with their APIs, but for what it does it's pretty much the only game in town for now. I might look at browser plugins to make their website easier to use.

It strikes me as the attitude of someone not familiar with the platforms. I can recognize their evils and harms while still appreciating how mind-bogglingly much I've learned from them.

The issue is that all tech companies treat their products as all-or-nothing options. It is not theoretically impossible for YouTube to exist without terrifying levels of data-harvesting, unfair creator monetization, and the weird shit they do with kids.

>Hacker News is great, but it's pretty much a glorified subreddit. There's almost no difference.

i think you stopped using reddit in 2009 or something, hn is akin to what reddit's tech subreddits USED to be.

Right but not for any technical reason. HN has what I presume to be excellent moderators, plus it has simple momentum.

I find it baffling that anyone is unable to see the value of YouTube. There are incredible resources available on YT for a wide variety of topics and interests. There are multiple categories where nothing else comes close anymore (e.g. cooking, gardening, movie reviews, live music recordings, architecture). There are amazing math, science, and programming videos. There are great interviews with a wide range of people. There are people who break down guns, electronics, etc. and explain how they work. You are really missing out if you use YT to watch the default recommended content.

Subreddits are not communities like forums were, on forums you'd get your regular cohort of people alongside newcomers and you'd start to recognise names, in jokes etc.

I don't think Reddit has that same vibe, I barely 'know' anyone on the subreddits I frequent as the nature of it is transitory, at least for the topics I'm interested in, people will stop by to ask a question and leave or lurk.

That's not to say I don't enjoy using Reddit, it's just not the same as forums.

While it is true that larger subreddits are unlike forums in that sense, smaller and medium subs can be very much like that.

i politely disagree. as another commenter pointed out it depends on the size and overall subreddit visibility.

you can find visible and recognized posters just like you would any online forum in smaller subreddits centered around a thing like writing, programming, music.

check out r/zen for example where there is absolutely an infamous user: ewk and quite a few other regs who engage him in healthy (and perhaps.. toxic, depending on your worldview) discussion(s).

Forums are a way better method of discussion and storing useful information. I still find information on my cars from forum posts 15 years ago. They're usually a smaller community without the big overseer admins of sites like reddit and shitbook, waiting to nuke your entire forum for something they (or now their Ai) view as a transgression. Some of my best friends I met on car forums when I was in college, and our board is still going strong.

I will agree youtube is super useful though.

It's hard to have a good sense of community when you have thousands or even millions of participants.

That said, I remember the earlier days of reddit with lots of novelty accounts. I think these days the only surviving novelty accounts I've seen are Shitty Watercolor and Poem for Your Sprog.

I disagree. There’s a huge amount of garbage out there, sure, but some communities are super active and can be used for learning. Take the PowerShell community for example or SysAdmin. I pop on those regularly to ask and answer questions. Google questions related to IT (and I’m assuming other areas of interest) and I bet there’s a Reddit post that comes up in the top 5-10 results (along with stack and other well known forums).

I'm not positive but this might be the most out of touch comment I've ever seen. You can literally learn anything on YouTube. Coding, drywalling, fine carpentry, fix your own car, build an EV from the ground up, how to grow certain types of plants, discover more about the universe.

I don't get it either. YT is a crazy good resource. It just can't be that hard to see.

> do we even need these communities

Absolutely. Though I think we go back to individual sites/forums (like HN is for startup/tech basically) instead of centralized platforms like reddit.

These forums still exist and are still out there and used by everyday people. Every one of my reddits that I follow has some other alternative forum that is active. Some examples, of of the top of my head: AVS Forums [1] for home theater advice (instead of r/hometheater), or Home Barista [2] instead of r/espresso, or Road Bike Forums [3] etc.

I actually don't mind the reddit charging for their APIs and making money for this convenience of single sign-on, cross searching, discoverability, moderation, user rating, etc...

People should just use the regular apps, which work plenty fine, and move on with their life. Or, pay the third-party apps so they can afford the api usage.

[1] https://avsforums.com/ [2] https://www.home-barista.com/ [3] https://www.roadbikereview.com/forums/

While forums are fine, their UX is usually inconsistent at best, and often just bad. Plus you lose out on a few quality of life things, like a single login, cross-posts, and saved posts.

Exactly, which I implied in listing out all the other pros that I listed for reddit.

That'll teach me to read beyond the first paragraph

Useful niche communities for every hobby, profession, etc

Reply on news.ycombinator.com