I recently produced a few projects that gave me an insight into the raw numbers of HN, and they're not that "impressive". We here have less MAU than your typical TikTok influencer or YouTuber. We have way loss total "subscribers" (excluding just lurkers) than your average C-tier YouTuber, or even a Rumbler.
Despite that, a crack on HN is heard around the world. A shot here can take you to the stratosphere (I know, some of my best deals and customers have come from random comments). I don't know how this can be because, the numbers dohn't lie:
each month only around 40,000 MAU contribute here. 40,000 geeks, in a "way more niche than I actually thought" orange-site internet forum, is somehow the "revolutionary salon" for where new bourgening internets are born.
How can this be? We are not special (at least, compared to the global internetizenry, I am not). And I don't think the rest of us are that special either, special in our own lives sure, but none of us have huge reach. And even if we did, I'd doubt the "handful of super influentials shaping the effects of HN globally" theory. Just seems wrong.
Despite that, somehow this little poxy orange website (sorry, mods, but you know it's true), is able to influence many things. How? God, damnit, how!?
What is the reason? I don't buy that it's the "YC" association. So what. Some hostname. Blah. That no one ever visits! Few, even fewer than here.
What is this place about, that makes it influential? I'd like to analogically understand if by comparing it with the "usenet" forums of YORE, where things like Linux and RFCs for now-standard net backbone tech were first promulgated. But that's not really the same thing.
Am I wrong? Is it uninfluential? Becuase despite the numbers (and numbers don't lie), this place seems fricking way more influential than its weight.
How can that be? It's not demographically concentrated. What is the cause of this anomaly? Ponder on that, the purpose of this question is.
- while HN is somewhat focussed on SV, it is coveraging a very broad global set of new & inspiring information
- HN runs flawless on nearly everyone device with superslow capacity (I have been in places where HN was the only page that was loaded because of the bad internet connection, while all other pages failed, even Google or Wikipedia). The page just loads - and this very fast
- for sure, here we do not have Ads
- from a personal perspective: So far this is the only page covering my core interests that broadly: they are arround tech, web, internet, digital, finance, economy, useful news, inspirations, psychology
- HN is that influental in my country, that local tech websites are actually copying the content from here
So let me put it that way: HN is a melting pot of a very thin group of people who are working on inspiring stuff I like.
(and I like the lurkers here: Very often there is an article about X, then someone shows up in the comments and says "Im working on X, I can explain in all details")
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