Hacker News readers are very protective of the site... reacted negatively... to... stories that... weren’t of high-enough quality to otherwise be credible candidates for the front page... HN users have an intense emotional relationship with the front page... people’s relationship with HN is surprisingly personalIn my case, that observation is bang on.
Caught in a web overgrown with ads,
infested with cookie popups,
impaired by erratically deferred layouts
lost in excessive whitespace,
with signal drowning out
in a coagulation of low-effort,
generated slop;
Sprouting walls of every kind,
from paywalls, to login walls;
even flared walls verifying
you're of the human persuasion
Walls that funnel
toward infinite scroll traps
devoid of true substance
yet ruthlessly honed
to siphon all the personal
and behavioral data
Bound by Terms of Use
amounting to forced consent
extracted absent meaningful agency,
Where it's clear
the very last thing
the jackasses running the place
give a damn about
is that ultimate jewel:
their User
In that horrible,
post-apocalyptic hell
to which my beloved internet
has largely succumbed...
I find in this here nook
something of an oasis
A respite still prizing quality of content
A haven where craftmanship counts
A community of colleagues
whose expertise complements
and fills in the gaps of my own
And, most crucially,
a venue where that priceless commodity
known as my attention
is still generally respected
and treated with value
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