Anything can be a message queue if you use it wrongly enough (2023)

Of course. A message queue is database, and software that handles it in a specific way to make it a message queue. So, HN could basically be that database backend for that imaginary software that turns it into a message queue.

I don't have fun examples with message queues, but I do remember some with filesystems - a popular target to connect cursed backends to. You can store data in Ping packets [0]. You can store data in the digits of Pi - achieving unbelievable compression [1]. You can store data in the metadata and other unused blocks of images - also known as steganography [2]. People wrote software to use Gmail emails as a file system [3].

That's just from the top of my head, and it really shows that sky's the limit with software.

[0] https://github.com/yarrick/pingfs

[1] https://github.com/ajeetdsouza/pifs

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganographic_file_system

[3] https://lwn.net/Articles/99933/