other?"

465 points bookofjoe | 2 comments | 15 Jul 25 14:51 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source

I would very much like to enjoy HN the way I did years ago, as a place where I'd discover things that I never otherwise would have come across.

The increasing AI/LLM domination of the site has made it much less appealing to me.

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jmyeet ◴[15 Jul 25 15:13 UTC] No.44572004[source]▶

>>44571740 (OP) #

No.

There's always a flavor of the month. Go back 3-5 years and every third post was crypto or NFT related. AI/LLM too will pass.

I've never really understood this desire of people to effectively hide content that doesn't interest them. Just... ignore it. Like there are enough people on HN who really care about academia and research. I don't. But that's fine. Let them be.

But here's the interesting part: so many on HN rail against the newsfeed concept . You will hear a significant number of HNers say they just want everything in chronological order. Well, except for the subjects that don't interest them.

If HN submissions were tagged and a recommendation algorithm decided what to show you, you'd get exactly what you want: fewer AI/LLM posts if that doesn't interest you. But somehow newsfeeds are still bad?

replies(1): >>44572129 #

1. lacksconfidence ◴[15 Jul 25 15:22 UTC] No.44572129[source]▶

>>44572004 #

The desire is relateively simply explained. Some people used to find HN interesting, but the modern set of things being upvoted isn't matching their interests anymore. They already ignore the content they don't like, the problem is the content they do like isn't there anymore. The assumption, I expect, is that if there was less LLM content the site would have more of the "older style" content they used to enjoy. I don't necessarily think that will happen, but that's my interpretation of the sentiment.

replies(1): >>44575056 #

2. zahlman ◴[15 Jul 25 19:42 UTC] No.44575056[source]▶

>>44572129 (TP) #

Exactly.

It's not supposed to be zero-sum — posting volume isn't limited, or at least I assume we're nowhere near what the servers can technically handle — but attention span is limited. Seeing a front page full of things you aren't interested in makes it harder to find the things you are interested in, and feels discouraging if you want to post one of those things (an unfortunate feedback loop).

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