Your contentment with the imperfections of an unchangeable status quo is an inspiration to us all, but not everyone is so zen - as of this writing, 2075 HN users think it's "broke" enough to type their account details into a rando third part site. Email notifications - that you can turn off - are an obvious and utterly standard feature of all forum software since approximately ever. It's no wonder people miss it.

Is there a word for this? Defending obvious shortcomings as features because they are not fixable? It seems pretty endemic in hackerdom.

Only 2075? and I am one of them. the thing is technical people such as us (HN) tend to strive for perfection, efficiency, etc. when in the real world, practicality is key. HN works, email works, the combo works... Look what happened when Twitter changed their font. I still cringe when I see it.

And regarding a name - "it's not a bug, it's a feature" - these people are collectively known as "programmers".

I was expecting this to be a new account.

Did you buy this handle?

Masochistic minimalism?

I am occasionally guilty

HN probably still runs on a PIII chip (or did until recently) — you nailed it.