To be honest, I feel the same way, but maybe there's a good explanation for the relative decline of "quality".
I think I started lurking HN back in 2007 (which I also believe is the first year of HN). I remember feeling a euphoric sense of being overwhelmed with great content from knowledgeable people and articles. I learned a lot about start ups. I learned a lot about programming. I learned a lot about partaking and consuming thoughtful commentary in a semi-anonymous setting.
But you know what? All of that content is still here, in different formats. The audience is bigger and so there tends to be more mainstream stuff on HN now, particularly around politics. But I think the biggest change is in myself. I've read the same stuff about lean startups at least 100 times now rehashed in different ways. Even though I've never raised money from a VC before, every time I read something on HN about it, I feel like I've been through the process dozens of times. Every 37signals blog post that gets submitted seems like a rehash of the last one. So most of the submitted content around those topics seem like old-hat.
At some point, when you continue to consume the content from the same sources for years on end, you're going to see more repeat episodes and you'll have fewer stimulating moments. That's just the nature of it - and I think it's just as important to recognize that we're transient individuals. Your probably a different person now with a higher capacity and understanding and that's probably in part thanks to HN.
I think I started lurking HN back in 2007 (which I also believe is the first year of HN). I remember feeling a euphoric sense of being overwhelmed with great content from knowledgeable people and articles. I learned a lot about start ups. I learned a lot about programming. I learned a lot about partaking and consuming thoughtful commentary in a semi-anonymous setting.
But you know what? All of that content is still here, in different formats. The audience is bigger and so there tends to be more mainstream stuff on HN now, particularly around politics. But I think the biggest change is in myself. I've read the same stuff about lean startups at least 100 times now rehashed in different ways. Even though I've never raised money from a VC before, every time I read something on HN about it, I feel like I've been through the process dozens of times. Every 37signals blog post that gets submitted seems like a rehash of the last one. So most of the submitted content around those topics seem like old-hat.
At some point, when you continue to consume the content from the same sources for years on end, you're going to see more repeat episodes and you'll have fewer stimulating moments. That's just the nature of it - and I think it's just as important to recognize that we're transient individuals. Your probably a different person now with a higher capacity and understanding and that's probably in part thanks to HN.