Product Hunt has been always been native marketing for VCs to launder perceived credibility to products they fund, and for PH that's not a bug, it's a feature.

The root problem particularly in 2025 is that discovery for new products is dead as the social frameworks such as have died out for various reasons, such as X's algorithm being very unfriendly to external links. There's a reason that most talked about tech products are for reasons extrinsic to the quality of the product itself, such as their founders (e.g. Cluely). The days of an indie project from an unknown developer going viral organically on Hacker News and getting massive interest of VCs have long since been over: hell, even Launches from YC companies on Hacker News don't get buzz anymore.