The logic was clear and its ongoing attractiveness as a first approximation of HN empirically demonstrated over the years. Sometimes, I find it an attractive first approximation.
However, I recognize that my dog, Scarlett, is an animal and therefore to a first approximation an insect. Yet, I do not squash her when she's in the bed with me, nor spread chemicals to prevent her entry to the house, nor scrupulously remove all potential food sources.
We agree that there is an endless supply of HN submissions. Though we may disagree about which is which, we also agree that some are better and some are worse. We also agree that there is virtually no barrier to entry in regards to becoming a supplier of articles to HN.
The points at which I find dissonance in the market model are:
() The supply of karma points is also unlimited. I can create a karma point for another HN'er. Of course, I can destroy a karma point for another HN'er, but only to a more limited degree; at least I understand that there's throttling in the software.
() Karma points are not fungible. I cannot exchange them for anything - except in a limited sense snark that I am willing to have downvoted, a practice in which I have occasionally engaged.
() Thus, if there is a market of the sort amenable to economic market theories, it is the sort of market which is for all practical purposes entirely illiquid. I don't know enough economic theory to suggest that such markets are not the subject of voluminous academic research, but supposing they are, that perhaps still suggests dubiousness in the first order approximation.
Teasing out the interesting facts about HN requires, in my opinion, a better abstraction.
I prefer a political model. HN has some democratic institutions - like one account one vote. It even has some aspects of Athenian democracy where the mob gets to vote on daily decisions regarding articles, and as in Socrates day, rhetoric oft sways the passions and ballots of men (and unlike his day, women).
More specifically, I prefer the republic - in the platonic sense - as an abstraction for modeling online communities. Ultimately there is a sovereign with whom we form a Hobbesian compact. Participation in a compact with HN requires us to give up certain rights in exchange for a particular form of security. The rights we give up to HN's sovereign and the security we gain are distinct from what we give up and obtain from the sovereign of StackOverflow or MSDNtechnet, or a professional cycling website.
The security we gain is largely that of reasonable norms. But among the rights we give up is that of not being subject to unreasonable policies at the extreme and policies with which we may niggle in the common.