First screen, captured 4 days ago. Open the video.

Going back two years on Hacker News is like entering another, better universe

What HN thinks

A nostalgia thread about how HN used to be better, which commenters note is itself a nostalgia thread as old as HN.

AI content is drowning everything
Many feel the front page and new queue are saturated with AI posts and AI-written material, crowding out the variety HN used to have. Algolia searches of top posts by year were cited as evidence that this hype is bigger than crypto or Docker ever were.
Negativity and empty sneering grew
Others say the real decline is in comment tone: more snark, more politics and more dunking on builders. Some date it to well before AI, and some suspect bots and an influx of users from Reddit.
Same complaint, every year
Long-time users, including dang, point out that 'HN is turning into Reddit' has been said since 2009. They argue the site is still high quality and that hype cycles come and go.

Consensus: There is no real consensus on whether HN has declined. Most do agree that AI dominates the topics right now and that HN remains better than most alternatives.

Recommended in the comments

unslop.news ↗ (service): Used to read HN without the AI-related stories.
enough-ai-on-hn ↗ (tool): Helps surface the non-AI stories on the front page.
Lobsters (service): Suggested as a smaller, more focused alternative to HN, though several commenters said it is quiet and has its own biases.
Hackaday (service): Suggested as a good alternative for hardware-oriented HN readers.

Summarised by Claude from the comment thread 3 days ago.

Points: 247
Comments: 187
Best rank: #10
Posted: 2026-11-09 by EmX_3000
Category: Culture & society

hacker-news tech-community nostalgia front-page-archive

All captures:

Full page

Captured 4 days ago. Click for the whole screenshot.

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