The downward spiral feeling comes from after reading HN for a while, you start to reread the same articles and same comments.
It does not mean HN gets worse and worse, it means you extract less and less value.
It does not mean HN gets worse and worse, it means you extract less and less value.
But the conversations are actually nearly the same quality, they are just re-hashes of conversations you already know the answers too. Sometimes you'll get someone who is quite disgruntled from the it and that will be a pain until they stop but for the most part it seems to be ok.
That said, if every submission only had one comment 'see link to previous discussions of this form' that would be pretty boring too.
Why does it have to be mainly about Silicon Valley? I like to think that there are a lot of interesting people and companies outside Silicon Valley.
In my opinion, there can be a lot noise here, but the quality postings and comments are much, much better than anywhere else. And, yes, the bigger picture moves more slowly than a lot of us would like. But isn't that the way things work?
Maybe someone (me?) should write "HN: The Book." Chapters might include:
1. Silicon Valley life.
2. Structured/conventional education versus self-education.
3. What you do with your tools is more interesting than the tools themselves, and many people have used bad tools to make cool things, though that in itself isn't an excuse for bad tools.
4. Problems with politics.
5. Commenting on commenting.
Actually, I started this list as a joke, but I'm starting to wonder if it shouldn't be. . .
And when I see posts about improving HN, I must admit that I just don't see it. Yes some comments are not constructive, but you'll always have that. I'm surprised we don't have more of this to be honest.
So is there a correlation between time spend on HN and your personal view of it's quality? Good question. How do you measure quality then? How do you separate yourself out?