&gt; <i>HN has been in decline for at least 5 years...</i><p>I find it curiously amusing that EVERY online community is &quot;in decline&quot; at all times.<p>I discovered Usenet and IRC back in September, 1993.  An epoch known in Internet cultural history as Eternal September (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Eternal_September" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Eternal_September</a>).  The Internet has literally been in decline since I discovered it!<p>Back in the day, even in its prime, every other comment on Slashdot was a meta discussion of how badly Slashdot was declining.<p>Reddit started out as a site for top-level post content only.  When they added support for comments, 10 years ago, the VERY FIRST comment in Reddit history was a claim that Reddit was going downhill!  (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;reddit.com&#x2F;comments&#x2F;17913&#x2F;reddit_now_supports_comments&#x2F;?sort=old" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;reddit.com&#x2F;comments&#x2F;17913&#x2F;reddit_no...</a>)<p>I believe that the &quot;sweet spot&quot; for on online community is one to three months after you&#x27;ve discovered it.  Just long enough to get comfortable with its internal cultural cues and quirks and in-jokes, and feel like an insider.  Once that point is reached, familiarity immediately starts shifting into contempt.  You&#x27;re never quite able to recapture that novel feeling of initial discover and inclusion, and so it feels like decline whether it is or not.