Keep in mind, as pg confirmed the other day, HN is still running on a single core.

pg/HN has always been good at prioritizing. (And at identifying his interests versus yours, which may often but not always overlap.) Also, there are ready workarounds, if you must, e.g. load the linked page of interest into a new tab before it expires.

This is something people liked about HN, including early on. That pg would make useful decisions and then not take / cave in to cr-p about them.

I'll live with the expiring links, if and as it makes other parts of managing HN easier.

P.S. As I reflect, is some of the increased discomfort and agitation from users on this point due to an increase in mobile browsing, where such user-initiated workarounds face a more cumbersome UI? (Not all, but some.)

It was a lot worse in that past but pg cut back on the number of fnids being generated, switching to more conventional methods. There's still quite a few around though and obviously increased traffic, meaning more new fnids to store, puts pressure on the cache.

I didn't know it was a problem, just assumed it was a way of making sure the next page's content is up to date.