I come to HN for hacker news (at least, as I understand the term). I wish I could hide all of the stories about startups, for example, but instead I just ignore them. People can do the same when it comes to bitcoin articles. Also, these articles shouldn't remain on the front page if people don't upvote them, right? There may be demand on such articles.
I wish I could hide all of the stories about startups, for example, but instead I just ignore them. People can do the same when it comes to bitcoin articles.
Using an extension to hide the stories is ignoring them. It's just automated and highly efficient.
One problem with putting blinders on yourself is that you lose touch with the zeitgeist of a site like this. Also, is it worth creating and installing browser extensions for flurries of stories that usually peter out after a week or so? Obviously some people think so and that's fine, but I think it's silly.
You think it's silly that people read what interests them and ignore things that doesn't? Isn't that kind of a big deal to the point of cognizant thought?
I'm aware of that history, and personally am here despite rather than because of it. I don't really have much interest in startups, but afaik there isn't currently another good general-purpose tech-discussion site. Slashdot isn't quite what it used to be, kuro5hin is now a dive bar, reddit.com/r/programming is overall worse than HN, and other forums I know about are good but only in relatively small niches (e.g. Lambda the Ultimate for academic-slanted PLs).
It is hard to deny the connections between Y Combinator/PG and the startup scene. I guess we all have our reasons for coming here.
Regarding the old name of the site, you did spur me to look up the dates involved (definitely before I got here, which was maybe a few years ago):
"The site was created by Paul Graham in February 2007. Initially it was called Startup News or occasionally News.YC. On August 14, 2007 it became known by its current name."
