A trip two years back on Hacker News feels like another, better universe
Going back two years on Hacker News is like entering another, better universe
Scrolling Hacker News from November 8, 2024 reveals a front page that reads like a different era: mitochondria as living things, multiple new macOS sandbox escapes, a deep dive into Obra Dinn's 1-bit dithering, LoRA versus full fine-tuning, and the FDA finally moving to pull oral phenylephrine. The mix of hard technical craft, science, and curiosity makes today's feed feel diminished by comparison.
Going back two years on Hacker News is like entering another, better universe.
- rcarticulate
I don't know, the frontpage looks fine today?
- Canada payment system
- folding paper airplanes
- Solar panels
- Raspberry pi price increases
- a bunch of show hns
- how does malloc work
There are more AI posts that's for sure, but it's also not that bad? It's also heavily affecting the livelihood of many people here (for better and often worse), so it's reasonable that it would be prevalent.
There's always been grumpy engineers here, on stackoverflow, reddit, everywhere. Lots of grumpy engineers are also amazing engineers. There's newbies proud to show something, even though it's not really always that great, some people dunk, some people encourage etc.
I still like it here.
- EmX_3000
Almost everything in the new submissions is about AI and has been for a while now. Same with the links you see. It's getting to the point where non-AI tech news and information is completely drowned out. Stepping back month by month you can see how the AI content increases exponentially. Soon it'll be all you can read about it unless something is done. Perhaps a yc.ai site for AI-related news and discussion?
- jdlyga
It's the natural progression of websites like this. Reddit went through the same progression: it was very positive and felt like a community when the migration from Digg first happened. 10 years ago, Hacker News felt like an insider website for professionals. It still does, but there's definitely an uptick in negativity.
- dang
Is it really a different universe than going back one year:
https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2025-11-08
or, for that matter, one month?
https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2026-10-08
Similar perceptions have been around since before Hacker News was even named Hacker News (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852).
- rsyring
In some ways, I think that's true, especially with AI. But, as another commenter pointed out, before that it was crypto stuff. So, popular things are discussed a lot. I personally think that's ok.
And, regarding AI, it's profoundly changed our lives especially for software devs. And we are in the infancy stages so there is a lot new and trying to be figured out still. So while it is somewhat fatiguing to see so much AI stuff, I actually welcome it. I've learned a lot here because of it.
Finally, while there is some tension in the comments, and a decent amount of negativity and pessimism in the comments, there are usually high quality comments that get voted up and people who are violating the guidelines often get voted down. Which makes me feel like the community as a majority still cares a lot about keeping HN reasonable.
I spend a lot of time here because I like it here. There is a lot of good and the bad is reasonable/manageable for me. I especially appreciated all the love for TNG and Patrick Stewart when he passed. My family doesn't share my affinity but it was clear a lot of the HN community did. I was comforted.
I don't like that flagging can be abused (IMO example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50366250) but it's also used for good so there, again, is balance.
Thanks HN for being "my peeps". I don't really have any other group that I'd say that about.
- corytheboyd
Guess I’ve been on this site for… 14 years? Dang. The trends seem to have always come and gone, along with the snarky picking apart of individuals framed as intellectual discussion. Yet, it remains a high value discussion board, where in passing, I learn about great tools and approaches to problem solving that I work into my own arsenal of thing doing.
The AI dust will settle, we’re just exactly in the middle of it right now.
- anthomtb
I don't see material differences between HN from 5 years ago and now.
Maybe 15 years ago HN was a truly different forum. The "tech" world was much smaller then, making this little corner of web rather esoteric and only of interest to an educated audience.
Additionally, there was still techno-optimism in the late 2000's and early 2010's so you'd have more positive comments and less American politics. 2016 always struck me as the turning point, not just for HN but for most of the web.
- 0_____0
Relentless negativity drives away people who aren't relentlessly negative. I am dropping in this week after a while being away and my impression is that people got more distant and cynical while I was gone. I'm working on a solo project right now but I can't imagine posting about it here where people seem to want to only find reasons to tear builders down for not doing things their way.