What's your favorite thing about Hacker News?

I like the anonymity. No blue ticks, no avatars, no verified profiles. No avatar or even colors to recognize someone. And yet most aren't fully anonymous - you could find them on github or linkedin somewhere.

So people are usually judged on what was said than who said it.

Some are pretty subtle. Sam Altman is just "sama" on this site and often trolls threads about his company.

So unlike places like Reddit, people can be a little reserved about dunking on others or BSing too much. You often see people getting called out for trying to explain how something works to the person who wrote the manual on the thing.

Little to no noise, simple design, reminds me of the old internet. Pretty much what others have stated in this thread. A lot of people here long for the old internet, and with good reason because it was such a different experience to the current state of things.

Hearing comments from experts in the field of topic

Downvotes on anything moderately funny, and sneaking a joke past the miserable gits.

Also (additionally to my other comment), I want to say, that I am cautiously optimistic about communities that are rising on the Fediverse right now. What HN brings to the table for its selection of themes, can do other channels for different topics there.

With the recent Reddit controversy, we see a drift of high quality contributers away from reddit. They've been sharing / discussing their knowledge for free before and I assume they're looking for places to continue doing so.

I'm kinda new here.

Hacker News is unlike most other platforms.

It feels like there's less noise, and the responses are super thought-through and well-articulated.

The quality of conversations is pretty impressive.

To expose myself to things I don't understand. This can be a topic or a view point on such. It constantly challenges me and I enjoy that very much.

Edit: Not that I'd understand so many things ... probably the opposite, but I only have a few people in life that share interests with me. So naturally, I'm not exposed to a high quantity of new ideas in fields that interests me. That's what I get from HN.

Old internet vibe, simplicity, and quality content especially in the comments and ask HN.

Simplicity and clarity

- No fluff, ads, loading times

- Good sorted comments