I understand the comparison, but the FSF can exist without RMS. PG on the other hand solely supports HN, I doubt he would continue to pay for a site that vilified him.

This is incorrect. HN is run by Y Combinator; yes, PG started YC, but he retired from YC 7 years ago.

Oh, I had thought he stepped down from the day to day role but still had significant investment and control.

There are many firms where the owner is never present, but all employees know not to cross them. (E.g. Washington Post & Jeff Bezos).

WaPo is very critical of Amazon

That wasn’t my impression 3 years ago when I worked there.

This site is mainly supported by its volunteer moderators. I doubt it cost more than a few thousand a year at most to run.

So the fact that PG pays for it doesn't mean much. If the community decided to no longer be under his care, they could easily find a replacement model or benefactor and they're more than capable to arrange such an uprising/migration.

Pretty sure dang is not a "volunteer moderator".

What matters far more than dollars paid is having his name attached to it. I recall Scott Alexander getting the forum started around his community to remove any associations to him because of things people were saying were happening “under his watch.”

Who pays dang? He can't be so cheap to maintain.

PG doesn't run YC anymore (he retired quite a few years back), which is the org that pays for HN.

I love RMS but unfortunately his skepticism doesn't get treated well by the vocal mass. These days people like to view things in a very black and white manner and if you dare to express your skepticism in a topic that is considered clear cut by the mass you get ostracized.

I liked it better when people were religious towards philosophy and universal metaphysics rather than towards technology and science. Now that traditional religion has been in decline for some time now, people have transitioned the concept of orthodoxy towards systems that are antithetical to it. This is nothing new, as there's long been a level of orthodoxy within technology groups, academia, and so forth, but now it's actual heresy to be skeptical towards anything authoritative, especially if that skepticism stems from one's own intuition.

Inversely, the "skeptics" behave so skeptically towards anything contrary their views that it has the effect of making them hardly skeptical in the first place. I'm not even talking about Stallman's form of skepticism, but what I deem "pop skepticism" that's permeated the mainstream narrative. If one is so skeptical that they are potentially missing out on critical new information, that's not actual skepticism. It's a stroke of the ego for someone too insecure to be wrong about anything. This is especially true when the evidence in front of them is sound and they refuse to consider it.

We are living in an intellectual decline. A true skeptic can't have any sort of controversial opinion without being socially burned at the stake.

I don't understand if your insulting RMS but the comparison is definitely insult to RMS. RMS is the legend.