Ask HN: Dang, what do HN's traffic numbers look like today?
HN certainly feels a little sluggish today. As a result of the reddit blackout, I imagine traffic has spiked.
Can you provide any insights?
Can you provide any insights?
factoring in growth, my guess is about 7-8m average.
i'm extremely skeptical that the reddit blackout caused any spike in HN. they're quite different audiences. if i'm going to /r/animecatgirls i'm not coming to HN. if i'm going to /r/MachineLearning i don't get nearly the same thing.
most people would be going to discord/lemmy.
Seriously, someone tell me, where else. I need another website to visit.
At the time (and partly due to my own childishness at the time) , HN seemed beyond me. I had nothing to add, as discussions were being held about technical topics beyond my level of comprehension, or about region-specific business information for a region I wasn't in (I'm not in America), and businesses I wouldn't be in a position to use.
Reddit on the other hand, was a little more mainstream - still quite techy, but there was also room for disccussion of entertainment topics, rather than technical ones. Reddit was the glossy magazine to HN's super serious broadsheet newspaper, and at the time, as a low-20-something working at a McDonalds, it was more my speed. I'm fairly certain I created my reddit account because I saw someone being wrong on the internet, and had to fix it. That, and it was a little after subreddits became a thing, so by logging in, you could hide topics you didn't care about.
All of this is obviously anecdotal, and whether or not this anecdote represents anyone else, I don't know. I've been back on HN as my main reddit replacement for about a week, now. It's still quite intimidating to me - linked articles are still often above my level, the comments section is still obviously filled with experts talking about the things they know about, and I'm still kind of an idiot with nothing much to add. The difference is that I mind less now. Sure, it's not 'reddit', with all the numerous topics and content firehose that comes with that, but it feels like a single, fairly dedicated sci-tech 'subreddit', with strong moderation, and a classic attitude to commenting where it's still about adding something, rather than having the funniest one-liner.
I probably won't comment much. I definitely won't have much to post, but I'm enjoying myself here. It's not replacing reddit, HN is very much it's own thing, but it's one I can vibe with. Is HN better? Sure. The quality is consistently high, the moderation is consistently strong, the comments are (fairly) consistently insightful. It's just for a very specific niche. Now someone just needs to make a 'Gamer News', and 'Cinephile News' and 'Knitter's News' and 'Dog Owner's News' and 'Fly-fisher's News' and...