Ask HN: Non-technical readers of HN, why are you here?
While I am not a programmer, I gravitate to Hacker News the community seems to value smart, clear, concise, rational arguments, and sees through the BS. Because the community is intellectually curious, it is happy to discuss any interesting article that contains a smart new idea or perspective, which extends far beyond programming.<p><i>Link Quality</i>:
Articles that are low quality and don't provide any new or noteworthy information are not upvoted by HN and as a result I don't need to take time and energy to sift through them. Almost every mainstream news site on the internet is half full of fluff, and the FB newsfeed is even worse. HN avoids this be having a community of smart people who care enough to vote, and also by not being captive to advertisers<p><i>Comments Quality</i>:
Concise, rational, well backed up comments get upvoted. If I don't have a pre-formed opinion of a particular article I can turn to the comments to find the smart people who know what they're talking about, and then the best rebuttals right below. If I stay on WSJ I don't see that.<p><i>Diversity</i>:
Not only does HN cover an incredibly diverse range of topics, but also a diversity of opinion in the comments. Most news sites are siloed by topic, and my FB feed is an echo chamber.<p><i>Procrastination Value</i>:
Something about HN makes it the ultimate place to go when you don't want to do something else. Your brain gets a jolt from hunting through the list and finding something new and interesting to read. And it updates constantly at a similar pace to meet my procrastination needs. Plus the articles are good so I feel like I actually learned something compared with the Buzzfeed articles I might have clicked if I went to FB.