Open secrets about Hacker News (2021)

Largely geared toward gaming for prominent front page exposure; since authored five years of adaption to ever evolving gaming strategies has occurred.

Could use a tomhow paragraph, The "Squeaky Beach" of HN moderators perhaps?

* https://www.timeout.com/melbourne/news/squeaky-beach-in-wils...

In my case, that observation is bang on.

  Caught in a web overgrown with ads,
  infested with cookie popups,
  impaired by erratically deferred layouts
  lost in excessive whitespace,
  with signal drowning out
  in a coagulation of low-effort,
  generated slop;

  Sprouting walls of every kind,
  from paywalls, to login walls;
  even flared walls verifying
  you're of the human persuasion

  Walls that funnel
  toward infinite scroll traps
  devoid of true substance
  yet ruthlessly honed
  to siphon all the personal
  and behavioral data

  Bound by Terms of Use
  amounting to forced consent
  extracted absent meaningful agency,
  Where it's clear
  the very last thing
  the jackasses running the place
  give a damn about
  is that ultimate jewel:
  their User

  In that horrible,
  post-apocalyptic hell
  to which my beloved internet
  has largely succumbed...
  I find in this here nook
  something of an oasis

  A respite still prizing quality of content
  A haven where craftmanship counts
  A community of colleagues
  whose expertise complements
  and fills in the gaps of my own
  And, most crucially,
  a venue where that priceless commodity
  known as my attention
  is still generally respected
  and treated with value