Nah, floods of new users have come before. The lack of images, politics, and drama, combined with the "boring" design drives the undesirables away, leaving behind people who like talking about tech and other interests.

HN will always retain some of the new comers. I was first reddit user then HN.

HN instantly brought me "old" internet nostalgia. Geeks just talking about things in a mostly open minded way. Lack of memes, politics and "boring" design will be all positives for some.

Moderation is quality on HN too.

The tech+(with some business) focused nature of the feed keeps folks off too.

No memes here.

Politics is very much on HN. It's a part of the same filter bubble as the rest of big tech: https://i.imgur.com/taGzsZP.jpg

It's thinly veiled behind more passive aggressively written prose than reddit, but it's here. No images, I'll grant, but as someone mistaken for conservative by liberals and liberal by conservatives I can assure you it's very much political.

Began with covid :)

Now where do we go next...

So long as media posts aren't allowed and dang isn't overwhelmed I think we'll be alright. Politics will probably change a bit though, if there is a big migration, and it'll become a bit more impersonal.