Nah, floods of new users have come before. The lack of images, politics, and drama, combined with the "boring" design drives the undesirables away, leaving behind people who like talking about tech and other interests.
HN instantly brought me "old" internet nostalgia. Geeks just talking about things in a mostly open minded way. Lack of memes, politics and "boring" design will be all positives for some.
It's thinly veiled behind more passive aggressively written prose than reddit, but it's here. No images, I'll grant, but as someone mistaken for conservative by liberals and liberal by conservatives I can assure you it's very much political.
The tech+(with some business) focused nature of the feed keeps folks off too.
No memes here.