Hacker News Reader

Comment by oa335 | Hacker News Reader

why doesnt hackernews count as social media?

Whether or not it counts as social media, there is no algorithm targeting individuals as far as I know. Social media in the sense of HN is just the internet.

It does, but as you really can't get money out of it in a reliable way by exploiting the user addictive behaviors, it doesn't have that effect on society.

It's just a cool place to visit now an then an check cool stuff out.

Kind of interesting how many people don’t realize that the purpose of Hacker News was to be an advertisement for Y Combinator and their portfolio companies.

You don’t see it as much these days, but YC portfolio companies can post privileged threads on this site for job listings, which in practice double as ads for the company. You’re not allowed to comment on them.

I haven’t seen one for a while because I suspect every company is already inundated with 1000 applications for every job in this market, but this is what Hacker News was for.

I think most people know this and are fine with it. YC owns the site and advertises their stuff on it sometimes. The site itself is not trying to milk you for every penny or trying to exploit you.

> people don’t realize

Y Combinator is right there in the URL. People know and don't care because it's a well run forum with interesting discussions, the privileged posts don't change that.

> Y Combinator is right there in the URL

Most people aren't so slavishly devoted to capital that they have memorized the names of firms.

Just live on /active and that stuff doesn't show up.

Whatever the purpose was, that's not really the reality of HN as most of us experience it.

And, HN doesn't show your ranking, at least obviously, so it doesn't get the same gamification to try and maximize points.

But, it is social media. Just that they make a point to try and tone it down and keep it focused.

Man, I wish. It used to be that, but I suspect now that there's a lot of astroturfing and probably bots.

I also notice that. I don't really know where else to go now

> why doesnt hackernews count as social media?

It doesn't intentionally insert dark patterns into the platform.

It's not without flaws, of course, but it's 1+ orders of magnitude better than anything else.

We have social media-like systems going arguably Compuserve and the like, as well as games. There's a matter of "refinement", like how some older people describe the change of drugs over the decades. TikTok, Twitter and many of the games are just "too strong", and it matters. Nobody gets "addicted" to Mario 3 or IRC to the point it resembles alcoholism.

People were definitely addicted to IRC.

> Nobody gets "addicted" to Mario 3 or IRC to the point it resembles alcoholism.

People definitely became internet junkies in the past. IRC was where you could find chronically online people before that term was popular.

The good old IRC quote databases were full of jokes about people not leaving their house and being online all the time. I remember being mocked in IRC rooms because I was out doing things instead of being on IRC all weekend. IRC was the place for the chronically online. This has always been a thing and it’s weird to see it dismissed so casually.

The lack of ads, and the algorithm for sorting the feed.

I think the spectrum runs from social media, to forum, to news feed… maybe other things. HN isn’t toxic.

If you want to be pedantic, everything that has user interaction I think technically counts as social media. So just about any forum on the internet counts. But there's a pretty big difference in an anonymous forum, and something like twitter, facebook etc.

I think it is part of Web 2.0 with its user-generated content, but I think it lacks most of the central aspects of Social Media:

- contacts/friends

- personalisation

- followers

I think some central feeds + comments are not enough, especially with the weak user profile concept (I mean, there are not even profile pictures). But I think some people consider HN Social Media.

because we're not putting our personal lives on display here. it's a news aggregator and discussion forum. sure, some folks post their personal projects, but it's framed as news to be discussed, not desperation for validation.

I guess it is mostly (by default):

a) real pseudonymity b) no photos/videos c) no infinite scroll d) no notifications e) very specific (mildly speaking) topic range f) very very good ranking and filtering algo ....

(g) guidelines designed for curiosity and intellectual discussion that are enforced by the moderators. No "real" social media platform has anything similar. (so maybe it's more like a discussion board? LessWrong/old phpbb forums)

So true!

Why should it? Can I add you as a friend on HN? Can I become your follower? What are the social features that would make HN social media?

Talking to people

Then e-mail should also be considered social media. We need a better definition.

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