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

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482 points ilamont | 1 comments | 11 Jul 20 21:53 UTC | HN request time: 0.203s | source
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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.

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alexbanks ◴[12 Jul 20 00:45 UTC] No.23807610[source]▶
I don't think YC really has "good discussions" as much as "A large group of people that already agree on most topics, communicating about those topics." And this site breeds just as much outrage as the next.

This is a pretty textbook look into a very unreflective echo chamber.

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1. areeh ◴[12 Jul 20 11:44 UTC] No.23810625[source]▶
As someone who started reading HN specifically because outrage tired me out on other sites, I have to disagree on the "just as much outrage" point. I would say markedly less outrage on average than other popular social media platforms