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Ask HN: Why wasn't HN replaced by r/Hacker News?

by jdprgm on 6/13/23, 5:52 AM with 4 comments

All the talk and controversy with reddit right now, why when reddit was one of the very first ycombinator startups and success stories when essentially the product was centralized forums was HN not quickly or at least in the first few years replaced by a subreddit. You would think it would be one of the first.

  • by anonymouskimmer on 6/13/23, 6:02 AM

    I really can't address the why, because I don't know, but I can give reasons as to why it's a good idea to keep them separate.

    Y Combinator is motivated for a variety of reasons to have a place like Hacker News, that is not ultimately controlled by another company, so they actively maintain and moderate it.

    Users are motivated to go to a place with a particular common denominator. The common denominator base is broadened when the forum is nested in a larger forum. Sub-reddit moderators have to take active steps to keep their users a specific subset of people, this extra effort also has the side-effect of excluding people who don't fit the criteria who may positively interact.

    Keeping HN separate from Reddit makes it easier to balance these competing interests.

    Also, a great number of people like compartmentalizing to various extents for various reasons. A monolithic entity makes this more difficult.

  • by jameslk on 6/13/23, 7:00 AM

    I might be wrong on this, but I don't think Reddit had the concept of subreddits back when HN was started (2007 I think? Where as Reddit started in 2005)

    EDIT: Looks like Reddit created subreddits as early as 2006, so there goes that theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Reddit

    Also relevant: https://techcrunch.com/2013/05/18/the-evolution-of-hacker-ne...

  • by Sunspark on 6/13/23, 7:05 AM

    Might as well ask why didn't all forums on the internet close down and become a subreddit as well?

    Choose the right tool for the job.

  • by brudgers on 6/13/23, 12:15 PM

    I think the fundamental difference is HN started as Graham's dogfood and Reddit was began as a startup.

    A subreddit might solve someone's problem, but to a first approximation it is never solving the problem of the person who coded it up. It is not a Reddit software engineer's passion project.