Ask HN: Anyone else feel this community has changed recently?

> Politicisation and intolerance

That the community is still such a place that there pretends there is a separation of “politics” from “non-political” or “objective” things, is itself a political ideology.

I have a strong bias towards the scientific method and empirical evidence, as I think many people share. But I don’t have the luxury of being “non-political” - my life itself is a ball being used for political ends, by the very people that run companies that prone here work for. Politics affect my day to day life as a programmer, as a person, as an employee, as a founder.

Events do not take place on a vacuum, and dissociating them in the name of politeness functionally only benefits the people doing the killing, the surveillance, and the oppression. I do want and am glad for this place as one of thoughtful discourse, but I avoid it for real conversations and connections because of how structurally it supports the now long-ascendant investor class - something fundamentally abhorrent to a hacker ethos to me.

The irony is that since this place started, people calling themselves hackers went from outsiders to now in control of the world. They’re the hegemony they once spent time and mental energy fighting against. One only wishes that the moral clarity when disrupting a system could stay alive when you take the crown.

I seldom post here nowadays and have been visiting the site for quite a while.

A major change I observe is that, unfortunately, a lot of political stuff finds place on the front page. In the past something that is likely to appear on the front page of the BBC would not appear here and it was mostly tech and startup stuff (barring the odd thing that would pique curiosity but that too I categorise under' tech'). Anything else was rare.

Also, over time, it seems to have become acceptable to show mild disrespect in communication - pasting LLM output as their own messages, leaving punctuation out (all lowercase messages), reddit meme like messages (this one not as often as the others).

I think some charm the place had is lost and it has become more utilitarian - or more of a hustler's place than a curious mind's place.

EDIT: Forgot another important one: clickbait headlines are more accepted now. In fact, the lack of integrity seems to be a badge of honour sometimes: "if you didn't regret the click, I don't regret baiting it", I recall someone saying here.

I say all this in comparison to earlier.

> a lot of political stuff finds place on the front page.

I think something very serious is happening in the US right one, and it's increasingly hard for our community to just pretend it doesn't exist.

Biggest change I've seen is a corporate approach to everything, rather than a hacker ethos. People experimenting and pushing boundries are penalised for doing so.

Too many cool little projects which are replied to with 'Why not use Y?' or 'Who needs this?'. It is as if projects are deemed as having no worth unless they are economically sound and improve productivity.

Comments like that are not new, the famous dropbox thread was in 2007

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

Perhaps, but I can anecdotally attest that they're becoming more common.

It's not just you.

Ten years ago, There were a number of posts that I would disagree with but upvote anyway, because they made me think. I haven't seen that in a long time. That kind of writing has disappeared.

What did that kind of writing look like? It stated a position, and gave reason to believe/accept that position, usually fairly concisely. Instead, now we see either just a bare statement of position (usually rather shrill), or appeal to authority.

The other thing we see much more is zealotry. Too many people are here to push an agenda, not to have a conversation. To steal a phrase from Patrick McClure, they're in "transmit-only mode". That's not a conversation even if you're in it. And if you're not in it, it's like walking into a war zone. Why would I want to go there? I'm not going to learn anything from either side. (OK, I might learn what their talking points are. But as a general rule, all sides' talking points are propaganda, and that's not worth listening to.)

I don't want to be in the middle of a propaganda war. I want reasonable conversations where people say interesting things. I used to find that here. I still do, sometimes, but far less often than I'd like.

> they're in "transmit-only mode"

Being on HN for "only" about 6-7 years this is something I've always found quite bizarre, comparing to old forums.

Discussions here die after roughly 16 hours.

Because there's basically 4 entry points, front/new/past/ask, sorted by recent-ish, for millions of users, as opposed to themed sections and threads, everyone is incentivised to say what they want then move on. Comments are disposable.

If you're not here every day religiously, you're not part of the discussion. Even if you are, but live in a timezone too distant from the US, by the time you get to read the most popular threads they're already obsolete.

Hell, I don't even know if you, the person I'm replying to, will read this.

I’ve been here awhile (since 2010 also) and I think it’s changed a little bit, but more because of culture at large.

The AI obsession seems to be slowly dying down, thankfully. For awhile it felt like every single link was about AI, now it seems to only be 10-20%. I expect this to continue.

In general culture I think people are more impatient, cynical, and frustrated, and this shows on HN. But it’s still better than X, where everyone seems absurdly confident in their obscure ideas and viewpoints.

It feels to me like there are less long form “thoughtful” comments with a personal touch than maybe 5 years ago. If I could adjust HN’s settings, I would incentivize those types of comments and not the quick takes that get all the upvotes.

I feel it’s still 80-90% of posts on AI.

Several time when this comes up I do a count on the front page and it's usually 15-20%. Just now I counted 4/30 or 13%.

I think it feels worse than that because for better or worse a lot of the interest is in AI at the moment even if it's not that big a percentage of stories.

Just n=1, but I’ve been here a lot, wrote a lot about everything, but the recent double whammy of becoming jaded at software (20 years of professional experience means that I am starting to see the cycles and old ideas being packaged as new) and caring more about the artistic and craftsmanship side of life during the AI boom means that, sadly, all I have to contribute is more doomer snark. To save everyone and myself, these days I block Hacker News the same way I block other “brain rot” sites like Reddit or X. When I cave or come back, the place feels ever more alien.

I guess I grew out of Hacker News and software development just like I grew out of most of social media, and let me tell you, for a person that used to participate a lot in either, it is very hard to adjust.

People change while Hacker News is the voice of mainstream/big Tech, the kind most early adults mould themselves to, to become hireable commodities, until the inevitable middle age crisis and reevaluation of priorities in life. In extreme cases like mine, during large cultural changes like today, you just grow apart from places like these, and need to find a new home.

I do agree with you on one thing: the AI boom is unlike anything else we’ve gone through, and the effect it has on such an heterogeneous meeting point is just the canary in the mines, and a teaser of what will happen to the field. We will settle to a new normal eventually, but these are just the first few warning quakes before a massive reassessment of our entire digital society and what it means to be a computer programmer.

> need to find a new home

I'm feeling this so strongly now but I don't have the faintest idea how to do that these days

It's difficult to find communities to join and I think many of the best ones are probably invite only

The hardest part is that the communities that feel like old HN or old forums probably exist but theres no discovery mechanism for them anymore. Everything funnels through 5 platforms and if youre not on one of those you basically dont exist. Some of the most interesting conversations ive had recently have been on smaller protocol-level communities where theres no algorithm deciding what gets seen

Yeah, and how does someone get an invite / stumble into such communities nowadays?

Discoverability has always been something of a problem but nowadays it feels worse than ever. There's just way too much stuff trying to grab our attention

> caring more about the artistic and craftsmanship side of life during the AI boom

In the past, I did not enjoy HN, and did not participate. But over the last 2 years, I realized that there is a small group of artistic and eccentric people on HN - it takes an effort to ignore the sea of content that's not interesting to you, and spot people who are on the same wavelength as you.

With that new approach, I find myself making new friends, discovering cool blogs and contributing more than ever on here!

Startups have been replaced by shovelware, curiosity has been replaced by demand for summarization, hacking has been replaced by financial engineering.

It has felt that way lately, but I can't say it is limited to HN. It's pretty tough to have a conversation last for more than a few minutes without it ending in a political discussion, a news item that isn't good, or a local issue that isn't good. A only slightly less than world war can do that. On top of that is the AI thing. Not going to unpack that here, but yeah, exciting and kind of crappy at the same time.

What I'm about to say isn't meant to be mean, but all you said up there? That's on you. That's all you. Keep doing the right thing with your votes and downvotes. Keep trying to come up with that great startup project and build it out and find an audience. Use AI to make you better, smarter, and stronger. Tolerate the ignorant and the different. Pfft...what does it matter anyway what we think of a goofball mouthing off about the remake of Like Water for Chocolate?

Take care of your self and find more fun stuff! If that means taking a vacation from HN, do it. I took a year off a while back and it did wonders. Also dumped most news. Even now, I'm writing Atari 800 programs for the next two days as a small retreat myself.

Yes, the world is on a little decline right now. That just means there's a chance coming to fix things, and the time to prepare for it just happens to be NOW! Be ready! If you do drop off HN, drop me a line and stay in touch!

The tolerant good ol days are an illusion. In 1999, 70% in polling were against gay marriage in the US.

The biggest change to me is just how negative sentiment dominates everything. Claude feels straight out of a science fiction novel compared to 2016. Social media addiction though has seemed to wire people's expectation for negative sentiment. It seems like the masses find anything that is not negative digital wallowing, somewhat unrelatable.

You’re not alone. I was wondering recently why I keep coming back here. The community that made it interesting seems to have moved on as popularity has taken off. Your typical tech worker has also changed as well which is likely part of the reason it doesn’t feel the same.

I'm seeing a lot of Gen-Z types with a lot of youthful energy, and moving to SF. Trying to make easy money. Every generation had these though

I had the same question about dropping HN earlier this week, and it's entirely from the the AI overflow (most of it low quality, IMO). For now, I've decided to be the change so instead I flag and hide.

Banning new/green account from submitting would probably help. /ask is full of green How do I AI? posts.

1. AI is the new low barrier to entry. Before it was frameworks. Unskilled people wanting to participate in the software profession will still find a way to include themselves.

2. Politics is not a problem here as other comments claim. The problem is more religious like obsessions. The most intense that I remember seeing was anything about Julian Assange. The current one is defending Israel or related topics of racism/genocide/nationalism.

3. I stopped looking at YC startups once 90% of them became AI startups.

4. It’s not just you. Occasionally people will post search tools that provide alternate UI for HN submissions with everything AI removed. While some AI submissions are valid most are just noise.

Do you know where one can find those search/alternate-UI tools? I tried to search for them but mostly came back with posts about general web search without AI.

Closest I could find was haxor-news which looks to be a decade old, and would need you to build your own AI filters if the post collection interface still works.

https://github.com/donnemartin/haxor-news

> 4. Is it just me?

It's not just you.

I've been on HN since about 2008, and the change is steep.

Since the site acquired social clout, status seekers have swarmed in vying for status, and an opinion orthodoxy has formed that's becoming increasingly intolerant.

Pity, but it's a natural progression.

Your point #4 is whats wrong here.

Millenials have aged.

We dont care enough to be bleeding hearts - so there best be no political conversation, bc we don't want to care.

There is a slice of us that refuse to even like interact with AI -> bc they are afraid of it, either taking their jobs or becoming Skynet - I have no idea.

If more interacted with AI they would realize AI is - maybe we would have more startups again, more personal projects - the majority of people on this platform have access now to something that renders solo/small team projects much, much more plausible -> so, where are they?

That you think AI is such a limiting thing is exactly what I mean.

HN is not more close minded - the People here are. Slowly becoming the boomers for Gen Alpha/Beta to hate.

> the majority of people on this platform have access now to something that renders solo/small team projects much, much more plausible -> so, where are they?

I question the sales pitch from these AI companies, because this isn’t happening.

The AI built projects that are posted feel very much like AI toy projects.

The only real interesting thing I’ve seen so far was Glaze from a couple days ago, from the Raycast people. Though it does make me a bit worried about the future.

I understand where you are coming from but this is the primary misunderstanding - AI doesn't do anything on its own, if you have an AI 100% do something, that will likely suck. AI is a tool, a resource, and something that you can outsource all the tedious and monotonous stuff to.

Its also incredibly helpful if you dont know what you are doing. You can learn from an AI.

My biggest project I've used AI for was a book of poetry. AI can't write poetry very well at all - I don't think that I used a single AI written line (I had notebooks filled with writings from over the years) but in general I had absolutely no idea how to write poetry - I know exactly how to write it now - like as if I went to school for exactly that.

AI is also a better researcher than most people, so everyone ought to be using AI for search 100%.

I had 3 startups back in the day, none of them took off - I have not done any web development in over a decade, I'm in the early stages of starting a project that I should not be able to do and yet I am planning on doing it.

The world is changing...

> No one is asking for it and I'm not sure anyone outside silicon valley even wants it...

I've been waiting for AI since 2010. Expected it in 10-15 years. Well, they've been thinking that since the 50's, so it's pretty cool that it actually (sorta kinda) arrived :)

Technology and government have both become highly centralized and concentrated, and entangled with each other more than ever before.

What was a little kickback has become grift to the tune of millions in plain sight. "It's just a donation for a pet project"

I grew up with that internet you miss. As noted, it became concentrated for various reasons related to network effect, uncontrolled M&A's, echo chamber attention traps, and now free porn that you can create, not just watch.

It's still possible to humanize this internet, in terms of private and small group-oriented inventions, and the many, many unmet human needs out there. Seniors need help. "Where are the exoseletons?" "Where are the SAFE self-driving cars?". Students need help in these rapidly changing times when Calvinists are locking kids under 18 from dangerous things like compilers and code repo's. And so many others need help that is not coming from the tech bro's, who are way more interested in life-extension and various transhuman things.

While medical research, vaccines and medical care are being savaged in favor of "supplements".

Downvoting? I was downvoted to zero for doing nothing but quoting an article linked in an OP that mentioned "double-tap" air strikes.

Techies need to care more about what they work on, and not in increasing Zuck's or Musk's or Jeff's wealth.

X users are being doxxed [0], and big tech has sold out to a griftarian government.

Bootstrap worthy things and let me/us know. Same here.

Small is beautiful.

[0] https://www.mintpressnews.com/x-users-find-their-real-names-...

>the traditional tech content that used to be posted here.

Most of the content was, is, and will be on the same level of quality as the average AI posts.

> Does any build startups here anymore?

Not in this climate

>One of the things I've always liked about HN was that it's a very open minded place.

It still is. On discussions of tech, plenty of people chime in with their own expertise and argue. On discussion of world events, the issue is that conservatives have been finally outed as just intrinsically bad people, and people are less tolerant of their bullshit.

> Is it just me?

Plenty of people feel the en-shitifcation of the world today, not just the internet. The smart people all knew the system was going to collapse, we just didn't know when or how. This is just the start of the collapse. Its only going to get worse from here on.

Yes. Unpleasant truths get downvoted more.

I've never been downvoted and gotten a counterargument. The two seem to be mutually exclusive.

4. No.

Also, it’s the h1b’ification. That and boomers there either all in on Trump or TDS’d beyond reason. And probably people like me who have mostly given up. Ymmv