Ask HN: How opiniated Is HN? I am long time lurker here and recently I got fed up of the overall pro BigTech sentiment. So I am curious. Where are you at home and who do you work for? Is HN really just made out of Silicon Valley tech workers? |
Ask HN: How opiniated Is HN? I am long time lurker here and recently I got fed up of the overall pro BigTech sentiment. So I am curious. Where are you at home and who do you work for? Is HN really just made out of Silicon Valley tech workers? |
In my office :) Southern Europe if that's the question, and I work for myself, contractor/freelancer jumping between existing relationships and kickstarting new startups trying to find product-market fit.
Never visited the US, never had any plans to visit the US and don't have any relationships with anyone/anything from the West coast in the US, FWIW.
I'm here because HN is filled with interesting people from all over the world, even encountered a childhood (programming) hero once or twice and managed to get questions answered. The wide range of people is why I keep coming back after almost two decades of being here.
I mostly use https://news.ycombinator.com/active as a "frontpage", it's sorted by most active discussions rather than "trending upvotes", as I'm mainly here to read and write comments, rather than finding new articles. I think using any of the other "lists" as a frontpage might give you a different impression, because I certainly feel like HN is more "Pro BigTech" than any other websites, if anything I'd probably say the opposite, but probably the truth sits somewhere along the middle.
That's just like your opinion man.
I’ve also noticed marked differences in average sentiment across the course of the day, which likely also reflects time zone effects.
The top story right now is someone being a classic hacker, hardware flashing bricked nest thermostats.
I was a sysadmin for about 15 years. I made gears for about 5 years before long covid yeeted me out of the labor pool.
I'm a Region Rat, born and raised in Hammond, Indiana. Now I live in the cheapest house in Munster.
Obviously I'm not an SV tech worker. ;-)
If you only look at the front page you will get that impression. Not if you look at newer stuff. I use hnapp.com for that.
[That's why I am here!]
I'm pro-use-shit-that-works and I'm anti-exploit-people-to-fill-coffers. Unfortunately, BigTech seems to shift out of the first realm and firmly into the second fairly quickly. People so enamored with the fact that it could be done, that they don't bother to think if it _should_ be done. The current AI-industry-wide financial circle-jerk that is sure to end in tears. Shoving AI down everyone's throats in some attempt to draw a profit from the hugely inefficient (and rarely useful) ai blob. So many on-screen adverts that reading an article without uBlock should earn you some kind of reward just for being able to make it through all the distractions and page layout oddities. It's enshittification in the name of profit, and it sucks.
And it's completely lacking kindness, an essential virtue for the world. Reliability, Functionality, Kindness. These are my lowest bars for life.
(also, not SV - not even 'murican!)
Not saying this isn't true, but maybe this is your own bias that makes you think that way.
I've despised "big tech" even when it wasn't so big, as in a certain creep dumpster-diving to get the source code for BASIC.
I've written down ideas for liberating kinds of tech, but it occurred to me that they often just try to undo the damage that's been done by sociopaths leveraging technology, and some of the worst offenders with a brilliant new business model: Sell ads. Low hanging fruit at the expense of print media.
And I experienced the internet before ads.
> Advertising is a poison that demeans even love – and we're hooked on it: George Monbiot (2011) [0]
Still worth trying. The times demand it.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/oct/24/advert...
I am quite stereotypically left-leaning, and hostile to greedy behavior and "move fast and break things". I mesh pretty well with the vibe on HN, because most people here seem pretty jaded about Big Tech, finance bros and the like. I also like how polite the conversation is.
I would say that your impression comes mostly from the fact that majority of users here, in my view, are from north america, and big tech is inherently "made in usa", as europe is completely impotent in the tech sector(mostly due to the lack lack of financing and high level of bureaucracy). so i would say that it skews the overall opinion. but i would not say that people in here are some kind of "yes men" or die hard fanboys if silicon valley.
on the other hand, i care very little about the "sentiment" or opinion of others in here, so it might be just flying over my head.