Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

My hypothesis is that about 300 people whose identities were formed by participating in the Slashdot / LWN / etc. communities c. 2000-2005 are active HN participants in 2025. They saw the dream of Linux beating Windows fail—and worse, they saw Macintosh become the high-status alternative to Windows. They saw the Olde Internet of hand-coded web sites be swamped by the arrival of humanity using smart phones, and they hate it. They are like 60 year old sports fans upset about the rise of analytics, or '70s rock fans bemoaning hiphop, or Socrates berating scribblers for displacing orators. Evidence: the 400-point popularity of dozens of recent stories on Firefox minutia—Firefox does not matter, nor does Brave (note: I worked for Mozilla for four years). The many, many stories about reviving the pre-smartphone Web. Probably other topic clusters I am forgetting—Web standards?



Consider applying for YC's Fall 2025 batch! Applications are open till Aug 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: