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

I think there's a larger point in what he said. Basically all current social media ends up optimizing for creating outrage, spawning mobs, less thoughtful discussion and more vitriolic arguments, etc. It's becoming a real concern to me that this is going to drive us into some kind of civil war or something if we don't find some way to check it.

The outrage seems to be like a drug. Nothing generates engagement quite like it, even if it's toxic in the long-term. So all social media platforms that embrace it grow bigger until they become near-monopolies, and all that don't so far have had a hard time growing userbases, making money, and generally fade into irrelevance.

It would be a real service to society IMO if we could find a way to somehow generate enough engagement and energy to challenge the big players without the outrage culture.

A little over 10 years ago I started a social network for neighborhoods. Instead of people joining the network, houses would join, and people proved they lived in a house by having us send them a postcard with a code on it. Incidentally, while searching for a domain, I even tried to track down and buy "nextdoor.com," which I learned a year or so later had been in stealth mode.

I first did a small launch in my own neighborhood to tune the product before going broad. It was during this phase that I discovered the toxicity of social networks. I was either a witness to, or drawn into, every petty bickering match on my side of my zip code. I am certain my product gave a wider voice to the wrong people. I should have known; ten years earlier I was an officer of my homeowners association, and it was the same thing, but face-to-face.

This wasn't the only reason I shut down the project, but it was the biggest. I thought I'd be bringing people together. I was right, but I had incorrectly assumed that doing so would be a good thing.

>I am certain my product gave a wider voice to the wrong people.

I think normal balanced people are not that talkative in public forums.

It's us, the slightly broken ones (and the totally unhinged idiots and bigots and so on) that comment much on social media...

I wonder if there’s a fair way to throttle people to make them think a bit more about whether it’s worth it.

The first couple I can think of could be gamed or result in metric dysfunction.