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Comment by notzach | Hacker News Reader

And it's not even responsive.

The article pages are somewhat responsive, while the index pages are not. I think that's a nice balance. I've always found responsive designs jarring when multiple columns collapse.

they redirect to mobile.* though

So they still hold on to the old train of thought of desktop users and mobile users. Shame really.

As a person that currently maintains separate versions for desktop and mobile - it is not shameful. It is just good sense.

You are still constrained with a lot of low power devices on the mobile side and old versions of IE on the desktop side. So it is big PITA to reconcile all of this.

In 5 year they will converge but right now it is too early.

The needs of both are the same: simple, readable design. Every time I see a site with these two versions I've found that I preferred one to the other, on both devices - either the desktop version's better even on mobile, or (usually) the mobile version's better even on desktop.

Just because it's old doesn't mean it's no longer relevant. There are several instances where having two separate sites makes more sense.

Mobile phones (via apps) are a lot more monetisable. Part of the decision may have been motivated by this (i.e. push mobile users towards the apps by limiting the responsiveness of the main website).

I'm not saying I agree with this (and I don't have any real evidence that this guided the decision) but it is a possibility.

this is really the only valid argument for a non-responsive design. kudos to you and your sensibility.

There will always be good reasons to design a site differently for touchscreens than for keyboard+mouse devices.

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