My HN of the past was k10k[1], SurfStation[2] and a raft of niche web design communities. What made these communities special is that they had unashamedly indulgent and whimsical chrome around the content, more akin to a magazine.

It felt alive.

Around this time it was hard to pull off complex designs on the web as internet connections were slow and HTML, JS & CSS were primitive. I think precisely because of these constraints, a sense of awe & wonder proliferated when people pulled off a fancy interface which led to an explosion in peacocking. It's what dragged me into the world of crafting high-quality user experiences from the positive reinforcement loops that were embraced and encouraged.

Some communities exist today like Dribbble that possess some of the aforementioned traits but they feel soulless or just self-promotion machines. Then again, there may be millions of relevant communities that exist that I haven't stumbled upon, yet.

In a world of post-scarcity, it almost feels necessary to create artificial bounds to encourage these esoteric & competitive communities.

Maybe finding, creating and contributing to magazines is a better metaphorical aspiration than a corner shop.

1. https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/gallery/kaliber10000-2003

2. https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/golden-age-of-web-design/sur...

Edit: formatting