Why doesn't HN get the hackernews.com domain?

Because it's taken.

I know that -- I mean, has YC tried to buy the domain from the current owner?

Not that I know of. But since the site mostly exists to promote ycombinator, and doesn't directly make money, I would see no point in their doing so.

I understand where the original poster is coming from. news.ycombinator.com is not a very intuitive url for a website that is known as hacker news.

http://hackerne.ws works if you want a more intuitive url.

If this were a startup that was trying to grow as fast as possible, it would be a good idea to own the domain. It would make the site easier to find. But we're not trying to grow, so we don't want to make HN easier to find.

It's a filter to try to keep the riffraff down to a dull roar. It's a litmus test that helps weed out nonhackers.

-- The RiffRaff

imho: sorry guys, hn is not about links or users. this is a lead generator site to collect professional startups for ycombinator cycles. they already have too much application every year, so there is no need to broadening the market. this is much simpler than updating a very good blog. imho.