To be fair, I remember people posting this same thing in 2008... 2010... 2014... etc. So far it HN seems to be able to buck the trend, likely due to its simplicity, the great moderation team, and the community. It's not without fault but it's better than most.
One is the moderation team. I don’t always agree with their decisions, but they are definitely on top of things and do what they think is best for the content.
Two is the comment sort algorithm. It’s far superior to Reddit, which I think is far superior to any other platform. On HN, if you make a comment on a post that’s a few hours old, your comment will still be seen. It will be at the top for at least a few minutes. On reddit it’ll just be buried.
And third, the lack of profit motive. Every decision they make is in the name of improved content. They have no concern for driving traffic.
