That's a good point, but I meant this more in terms of taking YC out of the picture and just looking at the site alone.

Hmm, you mean, look at HN as a Digg/Reddit/Slashdot look-alike? The "aggregator site model" is pretty simple to describe, really: screw quality, get moar users, ads, profit. It clearly works as a business model, but whether that plays to the strengths of HN is a completely different matter.

I guess what sets HN apart is the premium it places on quality rather than growth/traffic. And that it caters to a specific niche rather than a bunch of disparate, mainstream topics. So the question is if it could still do well given those differences.

If your revenue comes from ads, then almost by definition, small community == small revenue.

Imho, leveraging pg's experience in start-ups and the community here seems like a better way of exploring monetization options.

Look at it this way: of the following ways of monetizing, one could argue that the more niche-specific, the more potential the model has:

- ads (target: just about everyone)

- sell a book/magazine about running a startup (target: people interested in start-ups)

- fund start-ups that came about partially thanks to HN (target: people doing start-ups)

And that it caters to a specific niche.. and ..but I meant this more in terms of taking YC.. go against one another.