Most changes that people notice on HN are random fluctuation. Note that I don't say all changes—just most. The trouble is that it's hard to figure out which ones are vs. aren't, and none of us really tries. We just notice the data points we notice (which, btw, are the ones we're primed to notice—usually whatever we dislike the most) and connect the dots with material from our imagination. It's an amazing thing! Randomness plus cognitive bias equals narrative.
There's a thread about this on the front page right now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23293462. I've been saying the same thing about people's interpretations of HN for years:
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Everything has gotten more corporate. I hardly dare to make a Lisp comment now, because people from $BIGCORP would jump on it.