Of course I would pay $5/year for HN. I lose more money than that every time I compose a new comment. Time is money, after all.

That doesn't mean it's a good idea, though. I think it almost certainly isn't. It sends entirely the wrong message, it's a much bigger pain to implement than it's worth, it might work all too well at cutting the volume of submissions and comments (if you think a crowded HN is bad, fork HN -- the code is open source! -- put it up on your server, and see how exciting that is)... and it won't work. You really think a troll won't pay five bucks a year? I think you severely underestimate the entertainment value that a troll derives from trolling.

If, in fact, HN eventually declines to the Reddit level, the solution will be the same as ever: Some of us will head off into small invite-only groups (note that invite-only is distinct from for pay), and the rest of us will migrate to a handful of other new social news sites which will thrive for a while until they succumb to the same problem, or to an entirely new problem, after which the cycle begins anew. As someone has said in the past, it's like restaurants, or music clubs. They flare up, grow, shrink, and die out all the time.

Oy. All day long I slave over a hot repl, and for what? Such ingratitude, I tell you.

Wow, I hate this feature. Comment karma was already implicitly self-reinforcing. Now HN has reified that in the UI. Can we opt out of being highlighted?

Anyone else feel the site is getting too self referential? I noticed the lag as well, but is this worthy of a devoted thread taking up space on the first page?

The recent surge in self referential threads has felt Reddit-esque.

"This recent bout of viral narcissism has sent roughly 800,000 hours of worktime productivity down the drain...But it's just so stupid...I can't believe I'm saying this, but I've finally found something more stupid than Twitter."

I think the only thing worse than sharing mundane details about yourself for the world to see is to be the TIME writer that has sunk so low as to whine about it in a front-page article (yes, it made it to the time.com home page). Really? This counts as journalism these days?

This isn't censorship, it's a boycott, and it's a perfectly valid way to express your dislike for a company's PR decisions. I don't care about the ads, but I wish more consumers would put their money where their mouth is in dealing with company practices they find inappropriate.

Censorship would be these groups lobbying the FCC to ban the commercials.

Sorry if I am coming over as offensive, but I just need to share that it feels kind of weird when you submit a business idea like that, get rejected and than 5 months later read about how yc chose somebody else (who had already in the program before) to create a business - which is just your idea - and he had it like 3 to 4 months ago.

Of course the idea for such a thing will always be born in many heads at the same time so it was probably just choosing the better team - and this happens probably a lot of times. And of course if you believe in a thing you don't need someone like yc to approve it when you can just go out and build it on your own. Still I feel kind of bad right now. I don't want to blame anybody of misbehavour or s.th., but it would have been nice to at least get a rejection mail that says s.th. like "We already have another team for a similar product" so you don't end up like me wondering about the timing of things later.

Anyway all the best of luck with this thing - I truly believe it's a great idea.

The other thing that didn't hit me is that I enjoy commenting on things that are on the "new" page -many of those stories don't make it to the front page and as a result comments don't get replied to or upmodded as much.

"Time is money, after all."

A wise old man once told me: "Time is more important than money; I can always make back any money I lose, but time is gone forever."

What the hell were the couple in example #1 doing with their $200K income? If they wanted to pay off their debt in 10 years, they'd need about $2800 a month, assuming the rate was the full 12% the whole time.

I agree with a lot of the article, but a couple of idiots who pissed away the fruits of their education on too many vacations and fancy cars (obviously not any real investments, otherwise they could have refinanced their student debt) don't give a very good example.

It's not that I hate this feature. It makes me a bit sad. I've been coming here almost everyday for just under 2 years. I'm not orange. And that makes me wonder if I really should be here? Am I, actually, one of those people that HN doesn't want?

Thanks! I tried about 30 different colors. (It takes a surprising amount of work to make it look like the site has no design.)

Relative to the bailout money received, it certainly should have a say. As stated on one of the non-linkable comments:

"A loan is a contractual agreement. Banks attach conditions to loans all the time...and, usually, the riskier the loan the tougher the conditions. The same holds true here. If a failing corporation accepts a loan from the government, it must also accept its terms. Ms. Fiorina, don't forget capitalism can't exist without the freedom to contract...the same freedom that allows people and corporations in America to "decide what each job is worth."

Good comment!