HN is definitely a great community and source of quality info. But opening and reading every front page story seems a bit excessive. Just a friendly warning that HN (just like other news aggregators) becomes very addictive and can have a significant negative impact on your productivity.
[Edit]
I'm not sure why this link is not showing on the HN front page anymore. It was initially there, then it vanished. It's not a matter of upvotes either. When I scroll back several pages from the front page, it still isn't showing. Any ideas?
Interesting, but this only works if (a) HN covers everything you'd want to read, and (b) some folks still go out and find other material to submit. This second assumption probably will continue to hold, but (at least for me) the first does not.
I think that the way HN is set up encourages people to contribute interesting and engaging content (not to mention comments).
As for (a), I see what you mean. I think, seeing as I only recently started really getting into new aggregation, I haven't found my niche yet. I appreciate most topics on HN and they usually have some form of impact on me (developing my first Python application at the moment). Maybe once my likes/dislikes are more defined I'll want something that isn't regularly found on HN (at point I might just start posting it to HN -- there's got to be someone else out there with the same opinions as me).
The following article addresses this issue and is worth reading. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3604907
[Edit] I'm not sure why this link is not showing on the HN front page anymore. It was initially there, then it vanished. It's not a matter of upvotes either. When I scroll back several pages from the front page, it still isn't showing. Any ideas?