The only similar thread that I could find was from 2012 (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3996652), so I decided to start one. Please share your all-time favorite HN threads here.
I was going to post this standalone, but will post it here. I was recently reading the Hacker News initial reaction to Facebook acquiring Instagram in 2012:
One of the commenters says it will be the equivalent to Google buying YouTube. To which another commenter replies "bookmark this comment, see you in 2022". And here we are:
If they were wrong, the comment would have continued rotting away unnoticed. But they got lucky and were right -- confirmation bias is a wonderful thing.
In an alternative universe, Colin joined Dropbox and their UI would have been much more hardcore with better the whole product having better support for other OSes than just Windows and macOS!
Came here to post that one as my all time favorite. Since you posted that one, I’ll give another classic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 (“I have qualms with Dropbox because Linux users could just X and Y and Z…”)
That's his brother. The poster's name is Sanjay Vakil. I think he's saying - look at my brother. He is so successful and intelligent. Unless you have won the putnam (his bro was a 4 time putnam fellow), you have no right to be bolder than him.
As an aside, I think Sanjay has an inferiority complex or can't see outside of his immediate circle who knows his brother.
I've been saving interesting threads and comments in my favorites (they are in my profile). Many old-timers are surprised that Hacker News has a favorite feature. Comments are tricky: to favorite a comment you need to first show its details by clicking on the timestamp.
Now, for the links. A lot of freelancing and consulting advice threads have a good discussion and stories from the trenches:
The comment thread about a developer of a high level of mathematic ability who wrote and maintained a widely used piece of software used for backups. Someone commented something to the effect of “He gave up on solving Millennium problems to write backup software”.
Unfortunately the article appears to have been scrubbed from gilesbowkett.blogspot.com and is not on the Wayback machine. Basically, the article trashes PHP and Hacker News, which I thought was interesting.
and
The company that has a monopoly on ice cream truck music (2020)
I will never stop being Fred, but this thread keeps me from confusing my drive to refactor with what the company actually needs. Particularly these comments:
The Dropbox launch post is a great example of why you shouldn’t take (particularly dismissive) comments here too seriously. (This isn’t to dunk on any of the contributors there - but just a reminder that we’re all fallible and have biases)
Could you consider showing comment scores once comments are a certain number of days old? Being able to see highly ranked comments across all posts is interesting.
It was pg's coinage, but I don't know where he first used it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4693920 was the first time on HN, a few weeks before the link you mention. I think he might have introduced it in an essay before that, though.
We use the term 'shallow dismissal' in HN moderation instead—arguably a bit of a euphemistic move, but for moderation purposes it's a lot better to talk about the post than about the person. The word 'shallow' makes that clearer than the word 'middlebrow' does.
I mean I saw a lot of people saying they can use FTP and this and that but people moved on from FTP to hosting files on other sites back then like RapidShare, MegaUpload and so on. I know I used to share code and projects on RapidShare before it disappeared.
I do agree there are biases and sometimes people miss that they are commenting not from the perspective of the general population. Its nice you can setup ftp and this and that, but the common man has no time or interest for that. They want easy to use. Look at Facebook, the top way to share family photos and even holiday cards. I can only imagine without Facebook we would see way more holiday cards.
My top filesharing utility is WhatsApp, or maybe Telegram, both for sending stuff to others and myself. Sure I know how to use an FTP server, operate multiple HTTP servers I can upload to, and have accounts at Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive. But for low-risk one-to-one communication the quick solution wins. Back then that might have been Dropbox.
I took a look through the Dropbox launch comments. I understand that there's a meme of someone creating something, everyone responding by being dismissive and then it being a massive success. However, reading that comments section, I think it's really quite positive and constructive. Sure, someone says "I could do the same with XYZ" but if you look at all the comments, or even all of the comment of the person providing the alternative, it's an overwhelmingly positive response. If you post your project on HN and someone goes "this is great but how are you going to cope if 10,000 users sign up tomorrow" I think you should be pretty happy.
> The Dropbox launch post is a great example of why you shouldn’t take (particularly dismissive) comments here too seriously
This mentality is still thriving on HN
Just yesterday someone complained that Clearview AI would only honor removal requests for California or EU residents.
So of course someone responded that they should just buy some property in California, establish residency, and then they’d be able to complete the request.
"So of course someone responded that they should just buy some property in California, establish residency, and then they’d be able to complete the request."
I am looking at the name of this website and I see that the name of this website is "hacker news".
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3817840
One of the commenters says it will be the equivalent to Google buying YouTube. To which another commenter replies "bookmark this comment, see you in 2022". And here we are:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3818055