Opinion vs. Skill on Hacker News · Richard Watson

Hacker news has been one of my most-visited sites since March 2008. I’m not sure what has kept it so useful and relevant to me but whatever the magic sauce is, it’s reliably one of the highest-value websites to randomly drop in on. Content is refreshed enough to educate and amuse multiple times a day (unlike, say, Google News which can keep shit around for days), and unlike most other sites, it’s typically more valuable to read the comments before the article because someone will extract the nuggets and add insight. I do miss the days that PG posted, before the snark set in and people started one-upping each other to argue and gather worthless internet points. Yes, there’s usually someone wrong on the internet and we’ve all had the urge to correct them. However, the mild cost of HN is very much outweighed by the value, especially if you can separate out the chaff. Some threads are garbage. Some are wonderfully insightful. The secret, for me, is what I call the opinion-skill continuum.

Hacker news has been one of my most-visited sites since March 2008. I’m not sure what has kept it so useful and relevant to me but whatever the magic sauce is, it’s reliably one of the highest-value websites to randomly drop in on. Content is refreshed enough to educate and amuse multiple times a day (unlike, say, Google News which can keep shit around for days), and unlike most other sites, it’s typically more valuable to read the comments before the article because someone will extract the nuggets and add insight. I do miss the days that PG posted, before the snark set in and people started