Hacker News

I think HN is reflective of the tech industry.

I’m in my 40s and have been working in tech for a long time. I remember a time when it genuinely felt like the industry was a force for good in the world, opening doors for people to do things they never used to be able to do. And the companies were so open, e.g. I remember Facebook’s OpenGraph opening up a world of new social apps that were exciting to develop and to use. For sure there was a level of youthful naïveté at work there but it was still an exciting and interesting time to be in the industry.

That positivity still happens today but to a far less degree. Nowadays it feels like every major tech player is all about lockin, about dark patterns that draw users into their services whether they’re happy about it or not.

We used to point and laugh at the cynical, out of touch companies like Oracle. Now it seems everyone aspires to be them. So yeah, I’m often negative on HN.

Before AI programming was hard enough so it set a threshold that most reddit level minds could not pass.

The people posting on HN didn’t change, the tech industry consolidated and became more evil.

> I often leave HN less happy than when I first opened it up. I don't want to read reddit levels of hate and destruction, I just wanted to read tech news and learn new things

Usually it is the titles and posts underneath rather than users who make me less happy

I mean isn’t that a fair reflection of the tech industry’s direction in recent years? Tech became obsessed with money over everything else, of course people are cynical about that, how could they not be?

I think the problem is reddit frankly, the negative thought patterns it instills stick with people when they comment elsewhere online.

I quite concur with you, though nerd/tech/hack circles seemed critical of each other since forever.

But isn’t it just shift of the tech in general?

From quirky, optimistic, positive, “don’t be evil”, inclusive ~20 years ago.

To corporate, creepy, fascist, ultra greedy since ~10 years[1] ago and onwards to this day.

I could feel gradual change of comments more into right political spectrum, since 7-8 years.

[1] Personally - Cambridge Analytica and Facebook scandal is that point for me.

Is the more positive tech/startup stuff actually happening in public online any more? Seems to be a bit on X but mainly in private Discords or (madness) in person these days.

Negative sentiment around Meta is caused by Meta behavior. Not by some kind if irrationally negative mentality.

Wouldn’t it be a great idea to vibe code a copy site of HN that would rewrite negative headlines/comments or filter those out completely?

It always was negative or rather very critical of big tech and “innovation” (aka thinly veiled turbo capitalism) and very positive about open source projects and small startups.

I think you would be hard pressed to find much positive sentiment about a company like Facebook here; eg a post 6 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25662215

There are certain threads that always invite a lot of negativity just because of the subject matter. It’s relatively easy to avoid those once you spot the pattern …

Have you considered that maybe tech's role in the world and its impact might've become more and more undeniably negative and as such talking about tech inevitably brings negativity?

I've been noticing that a lot lately. There was a period of like 8-12 months where I took a break from HN, and when I came back it seemed like HN had changed a lot.

Every comment thread got dragged into talking about the same few dozen things (or people) no matter where it started and the same shallow reddit level comments seemed to be all over the place.

Whereas before even on contentious topics there would be viewpoints like X s negative in these ways but if we also consider Y, W and Z these could be confounding factors, people were open to alternative takes and wanted to learn. Even on subjects I disagreed with I came out of it feeling like I better understood things, and other viewpoints. Nowadays though it feels like if the headline read "SpaceX space craft contacted by extra-terrestrials" it'd take 30 minutes to turn into a discussion of Musk.

Problem is I need to stay in the loop on the tech news scene that isn't shallow stories written by "tech journalists" who have a PHB understanding of the issue they're covering, or thinly vieled marketing brochures.

If anyone has any pointers to where I could find that I'd appreciate it. Moreover if anyone knows of some semi-private communities that would take in a poor internet refuge seeking a new tech land to call home I'd appreciate an introduction.

https://x.com/KelseyTuoc/status/1588231892792328192

You're fooling yourself if you think your opinions, particularly on matters outside of your direct experience, can exist independent of well funded influence campaigns.

The vibe has changed towards silicon valley. It's like a country club for the highly out-of-touch autistics.

It's also full of people who stay in ivory towers and complain about first world problems while a lot of real suffering is occuring right outside their bubble.

I take that hn negativity over looking at the world through corporate rose-colored glasses and being... "excited".

Yup - as I posted in another thread, HN is the land of the miserable.

Edit: I wish HN showed some kind of indicator next to usernames, like a small flag for the poster’s country. I’d love to see how reactions to an article vary depending on where people live.

If that's the case, then why not ban it?

SAM (Segment Anything Model) is an underappreciated line of open weights transformer models, which Facebook has released and are absolute magic for computer vision.

WhatsApp as a service is pretty good. I can have great quality video chat with people on the other side of the world for free.

When I was a kid this was not possible / very expensive.

(Of course personally I prefer more privacy focused options like Signal, but still)

Well, the play devil's advocate, the Meta Quest series of VR headsets have been a boon for healthy exercise. It stands to reason the headsets would not have had as much reach if only Oculus sold them. Then, there is the benefits like the FB marketplace, which as been a boon for small businesses and individuals. Facebook more generally has had a lasting impact on the way we communicate online and social media. As with all social media though, it has its benefits and downsides.

Answering this question feels like walking into a downvote trap on HN, but commenters here constantly underestimate how much small and local businesses around the world operate on Meta services: It’s how they find and connect with customers, communicate with them, and engage with the communities.

The sentiment toward Meta is completely different when I talk to friends who are not in tech and who have small, local businesses. Like I’m talking to people who live in two completely different worlds and wouldn’t understand each other’s perspectives.

I usually hold my tongue on this topic, as I expect many others do, because commenting with anything other than pure anti-Meta sentiment is just asking for downvotes on this website, but since you asked what I presume to be an honest question I think it’s worth an honest answer.

Note that I’m not trying to say that this makes up for that or to cancel out other complaints people might have. I’m only trying to answer the question above.

Zstd.

But that's about it.

You know I hear people act like social media is always a net negative, but an example I like to point is the several shootings that happened during the "No kings" protest. Because of dozens of people recording and having access to social media the incident in all of its messy details came out quickly and in a way that couldn't be shut down. Now think in a world without social media how does that actually get widespread coverage? Who gets the first word out, is it random people videoing on their phones or is it the government with an official report of the incident that produces their spin?

I'm not saying social media is ideal, but it has done a lot to democratize the ability of people to share what is happening around them. Now whether that is a good or bad thing has more to do with how you feel about democracy and that's a different discussion. But although it is taking time to adapt I'd say that one now has more opportunities to be informed about the things that are going on them ever before.

You are not forced to use it if that is the case for you.

I can’t think of a single way they’ve made my life worse. Messenger makes it easier to connect with friends. Facebook marketplace is a better Craigslist. Facebook itself is fine for sharing photos of life events with family (that’s about all I use it for and I’d prefer higher quality photos but whatever). The Meta VR headsets are great for their price. Back when I had a photography business running ads that could target newly engaged couples was great both for me and those couples that otherwise wouldn’t have discovered a photographer that matched their preferred style and budget.

Seriously - how is my life worse because of them?

Don't use it? I doubt most who do agree with you.

That's a fair remark but I think it's also fair to note that these two news stories are qualitatively different.

One is about Facebook the product, the other about some technical detail

Yes. British East India Company, Dutch East India Company, genocide for generations just like Meta.

On https://enforcementtracker.com/ I’m seeing:

- Meta Platforms Ireland Limited: €4,514M

- Facebook Ireland Ltd.: €60M

- WhatsApp Ireland Ltd.: €225M

- Meta Platforms, Inc.: €405M

That totals €5.204B. Add in Italy’s €805M and we’re up to €6.009B.

They have two fines to date this year well into the billions. A multistate 17B fine and 25B fine from New Mexico

The teen settlement alone was $17-18B.

Do you think the "allow photo access? yes/no" dialogue has ten pages of legalese? I promise, it does not. Really unclear what Meta should do differently.

Yes it says so in the article. Users gave permission to access photos for one purpose and Meta abused it to access all photos for other purposes. They tried to weasel out of it by using a fine print "and other purposes" in the consent dialog, it didn't work.

WhatsApp has a similar issue. You can't share just one photo, you have to give it access to all photos.

That's kind of ridiculous though? Should there be multiple permissions for every different thing the app might want to do with your camera roll? Should a user constantly have to affirm access to the camera roll while using the app? Once should be enough!

> Giving access to photos so that the user can upload a photo is not giving consent to analyze all the photos of the user on a phone.

What they were found guilty of doing is suggesting to the user they might want to upload a photo. All on-device, not uploading anything.

Indeed. The rise of Meta and the downturn of society seem highly correlated.

There is a never ending set of regulations in Europe so they could hypothetically just keep doing this indefinitely.

The vast majority of regulations are poorly enforced in most countries because they require extensive administrative efforts and legal costs, while politics push them to focus on the new boogieman. But if a government wants to find something against you they can. There's a large short term financial incentive with these ones.

What does Meta have in Italy? A few office chairs?

Do you have any actual example of this, or is it just something you've made up?

That's still true. The GDPR needs to have stronger teeth though, because the solution isn't for me to be wary of who has data about my bedroom activities, but rather making having that data into a problem for them.

Allow me to be dubious about the Italian government spying on Italian journalists for security reasons like it happened in the past. I'm not commenting on that case specifically, but it's not like we're saints

It’s entirely possible to operate in accordance with local laws, or they can leave the market entirely. As an Italian I’d be delighted if Meta upped and left, heaven knows it’s not done any good to society.

Because it turns out consent doesn't work that way. It has to be informed, it doesn't count if there's trickery.

Just because you have the physical ability to upload some data doesn't mean it's legal to.

Users consent to give access to the camera roll so to be able to upload specific photos from the gallery, not for Meta to get photos from there like it's an open buffet.

Banning would go against capitalist interests.