Anecdata re: readership age: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17636856

Eyeballing: average age seems to be mid 30's.

EDIT: 35.4, you can run in your console on that thread:

    function averageAge(){
        const ages = Array.prototype.slice.call(document.querySelectorAll('.commtext'))
                    .map(span => span.innerText)
                    .map(text => text.slice(0,2))
                    .map(firstTwo => Number(firstTwo))
                    .filter(n => !isNaN(n))
        return ages.reduce((x,y) => x + y, 0) / ages.length
    }

    averageAge()

Played a bit of code golf with your snippet, but can't figure out how to combine the .map(Number).filter(Number):

    let avgAge = [...document.querySelectorAll('.commtext')]
                  .map(span => parseInt(span.innerText))
                  .map(Number)
                  .filter(Number)
                  .reduce((i,d,c, ages) => ages.reduce((x, y) => x+y) / ages.length)

Well, it depends. I started reading HN around 21, when I was doing my first startup, which quickly failed because of problems with my personality — lack of self-awareness, bad work ethic, but most importantly, unsolved emotional problems. I'd never say that I've worked all these issues out, but age experience and hard labour I've put into therapy certainly help with self-improvement. Not to mention that my CV is more impressive, which puts me into a completely different position in the labour market.

So, if you don't go to harder goals and projects, like having children, life can get easier. But it's always your conscious decision to move on to a harder difficulty level.

HN readership is definitely skewing mid 30s at this point.

do you have any data to back this up?

I am 37 and judging by the comments here, I feel like average user age is above around 40.

I’m 21 but don’t comment a lot as it’s a bit intimidating. As far as I perceive top commenters are older than me as they usually have a lot of experience in the topic they’re discussing. I bet many people my age feel the same

Hasn't HN grown quite a bit in recent years? I would assume that would pull the average age down.

I could believe it. It was definitely a product of its time, riding a wave of people that simply don't exist in the same amounts anymore. Outside the bubble, a lot of society has moved on to other obsessions and talking points.