I feel like this is closer to the root cause. People start out and everything is new, and they have this huge sense of wonder about what is going on around them in the valley, and then after a year or two you realize that bigger picture moves more slowly, a lot of people re-invent the wheel, Etc.
But the conversations are actually nearly the same quality, they are just re-hashes of conversations you already know the answers too. Sometimes you'll get someone who is quite disgruntled from the it and that will be a pain until they stop but for the most part it seems to be ok.
That said, if every submission only had one comment 'see link to previous discussions of this form' that would be pretty boring too.
... wonder about what is going on around them in the valley ...
Why does it have to be mainly about Silicon Valley? I like to think that there are a lot of interesting people and companies outside Silicon Valley.
In my opinion, there can be a lot noise here, but the quality postings and comments are much, much better than anywhere else. And, yes, the bigger picture moves more slowly than a lot of us would like. But isn't that the way things work?
It does not mean HN gets worse and worse, it means you extract less and less value.
Maybe someone (me?) should write "HN: The Book." Chapters might include:
1. Silicon Valley life.
2. Structured/conventional education versus self-education.
3. What you do with your tools is more interesting than the tools themselves, and many people have used bad tools to make cool things, though that in itself isn't an excuse for bad tools.
4. Problems with politics.
5. Commenting on commenting.
Actually, I started this list as a joke, but I'm starting to wonder if it shouldn't be. . .
I'm relatively new to HN, and also learning to program. I don't comment much. I rarely submit. But I read pretty much everything, including the comments.
And when I see posts about improving HN, I must admit that I just don't see it. Yes some comments are not constructive, but you'll always have that. I'm surprised we don't have more of this to be honest.
So is there a correlation between time spend on HN and your personal view of it's quality? Good question. How do you measure quality then? How do you separate yourself out?
I thought the negative perception was due to the effect of nostalgia for old times, but this is an even better explanation. Everything is exciting and more stimulating at first, that's how the brain works. Of course after a few years, that feeling of freshness is going to be lessened, even if the actual overall quality is better.
I couldn't agree more. Also, there are plenty of run of the mill "news" articles from tech crunch et. al. But there are still more than plenty of interesting programming/hacker articles and nuggets of goodness posted.
It does not mean HN gets worse and worse, it means you extract less and less value.