Ask HN: Will HN survive Reddit imploding?
I was thinking to myself that HN might end up taking in some Reddit Refugees in the next few weeks/months. Then I saw this post:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36236023
Is this potentially the end for HN as we know it? I think at least when it comes to technical subreddits, they're already here anyway. I don't think the average reddit user will see HN as a replacement. Reddit is not imploding. Everyone's going to forget about this in a month. Reddit usage numbers will continue to increase. Agreed. Seems folks on HN lose track of their biases - like all people. It’s been trying to Implode for years but lack of competition has kept it somewhat constrained People continue to act like the internet today is the same as 2011. Mass censorship is now a requested feature by a large portion of the country. The original Reddit would never be allowed to exist today, nor would those folks want to use it. So the questions on what gets censored would be endless unless the answer is nothing gets censored (but again, people wouldn’t accept that). Let’s say a new Reddit spawns. Are the same tech crowds responsible for the moderating of Covid, trump insurrection, Russian misinformation, stuff gonna accept all that again? What about holocaust denial? Remember r/ni**s, how it survived for years and years with nothing positive to show. The examples are endless, so unless people are willing to stomach it all, what’s the point of switching? Some people would argue HN has already suffered This place has been a reddit refuge for many years already. And reddit will not implode. Why would this be the end of HN? HN does not have communities, its algorithm is good at supporting diverse content, and the moderators are good at keeping discussion civil. They're implying an impending Eternal September style event hitting HN as people flee Reddit and find new communities (including HN) to join. On Reddit, the norm is often making jokes in the comments whereas here on HN ideally we're sticking to the topic at hand or posting some anecdotes related to it. Jokes just worsen the signal:noise ratio here. Imagine reading RFC discussions but needing to skip every 3rd comment because it's just a pun. Because moderation is manual and not scalable? I don't know that HN will see more than a blip, but I'd imagine some niche interests will get more users on 4chan as a result. I don't know but I'm going to enjoy watching HN lose its collective shit over it.