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Surely HN doesn't require the existence of YC as a startup accelerator to exist, right? HN has to me survived because of its community and shared values wrt discussion. The moderation probably plays a role in it, but that's also easily decoupled from big money.

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> The moderation probably plays a role in it, but that's also easily decoupled from big money.

Do you believe that users are going to pay to get access to HN?

No, but I also believe that it's not so expensive that someone couldn't cover it if it was their hobby. This is doubly true if it's something like HN where it's not trying to scale to infinity.

If it weren't for YC and the network effect of of SV startup culture (remember it started as "Startup News"), HN would be just another niche forum from which most people would have migrated to Reddit ages ago. It might still exist, but only as a withered shell of its former self.

The only reason HN still persists at the scale that it does is precisely because of its association with YC and "tech bros," because the billion dollar venture capital firm running it has made it a part of their identity.

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