Hacker News Reader

I don't think it's meant to be primarily used as a link sharing tool. I think it's supposed to be a tool you can use to redirect to a FOSS front end when you are using a user agent that doesn't support extensions or plug-ins to automatically redirect you

One use case that jumps out for me is that a link sharing site can help users connect to a more functional site. Bypass paywall, login, etc. HN used to have a "web" link that did this, but it was removed. Now you'll often see comments that manually link these sites.

I've actually been looking [1] for an alternate HN front-end that does this (I'm not a fan of the extensions). Farside looks like an optimal way to do it.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39166043

Think of it as a load balancer. A link will redirect to whatever instance is someone deems to be up (and to exist, in the first place).