←back to thread

PG: The biggest source of stress for me at YC was running HN

(twitter.com)
482 points ilamont | 1 comments | 11 Jul 20 21:53 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
Show context
dsr_ ◴[11 Jul 20 23:22 UTC] No.23807091[source]▶
The key to getting good discussions is to not have a profit motive coupled to eyeballs.

HN doesn't show ads, doesn't care about growth.

Large newspapers had strict firewalls between advertising, journalism and opinion -- but smaller papers had to fold to pressure from advertisers.

Subscription services need eyeballs badly -- but they need paying eyeballs, which means that they need to offer more than just outrage -- but if they don't show at least some of their content for free, they can't grow.

replies(8): >>23807273 #>>23807344 #>>23807610 #>>23807680 #>>23808527 #>>23808619 #>>23808866 #>>23813896 #
asdfasgasdgasdg ◴[12 Jul 20 00:02 UTC] No.23807344[source]▶
That is plainly insufficient. There's serious outrage, polarization, and lack of nuance on this site about a variety of topics. Privacy, anything google, amazon, or Uber, gender and racial politics, Facebook, etc. There's more going on here than the profit motive.

The problem isn't that these companies want to make a profit. The problem is they make it easy for people to get what they want, and users seek out outrage and polarization. I think that combined with the globalizing tendency of ubiquitous, high bandwidth, low latency, broadcast-capable connections is a real problem. But since I believe it's a human nature thing, I'm much less sure of how to solve it, especially while respecting the free speech value.

replies(3): >>23807405 #>>23807618 #>>23807786 #
xtracto ◴[12 Jul 20 00:13 UTC] No.23807405[source]▶
Using the fact that CmdrTaco commented in that twitter thread, i want to bring into comment slashdot moderation system. I always thought it was better than simple upvote/downvote because the "tags" (insightful, interesting, flamebait,troll) enticed you to think twice about the modding, preventing knee-jerk nodding reaction.

The fact that often the most voted comments on hacker news are the most extreme (saying something is completely wrong) shows that we love correcting people and will discount a good conversation in place of some virtual approval.

replies(2): >>23807631 #>>23813351 #
hiccuphippo ◴[12 Jul 20 00:49 UTC] No.23807631[source]▶
Sometimes I vote something up because I want to see a good counterargument in the replies. Should I not be doing this?
replies(5): >>23807676 #>>23807973 #>>23808093 #>>23810847 #>>23811033 #
ufmace ◴[12 Jul 20 02:09 UTC] No.23808093[source]▶
I've done this at times to a well-written argument that I disagree with. Could be just basic fairness, hoping to attract somebody to counter-argue, or possibly to help it rise above more poorly-reasoned arguments for the same thing, or even to make my own counter-argument post more visible.
replies(1): >>23808413 #
vxNsr ◴[12 Jul 20 03:00 UTC] No.23808413{3}[source]▶
Why don’t you offer your own counter? Just curious
replies(1): >>23808874 #
1. ufmace ◴[12 Jul 20 04:40 UTC] No.23808874{4}[source]▶
Sometimes I do. If I don't, it's probably because I just don't have the time or energy to write a well-reasoned counter-argument at the moment. Or maybe because I don't know enough, and don't feel like doing the research to support what I think. Getting sucked into internet arguments at work or while working on my own projects is just terrible for productivity and focus.