Holy crap. I know that HN is all about issuing poisonous put-downs towards people who make things, but seldomly have I been reminded of that with such an artfully distilled piece of bile.

Something is deeply wrong with this community. Not everyone was born with 10 famous startups and 10k Twitter followers under their belt, but things can and do change.

And no, I'm not in favor of spamming indices, either.

It's not HN, it's (am I really about to type this?) hacker culture. It's antagonistic and adversarial; I personally thrive in an environment where I get told to eat shit and die if I ask a question I could have found the answer to on Google.

You're fighting nearly 30 years of tradition - don't bother. Just get used to it.

It's not hacker culture where I come from, and it continues only if people enjoy it with all the consequences. There's a difference between a slightly snarky exchange at the office and a forum where people come to talk about ideas. An "eat shit and die" culture might be entertaining for a short while, but ultimately it becomes self-destructive when nobody cares to post or show anything new and everything old gets worshipped by consensus.

Yes, I have no problem telling someone on ShowHN where I see the issues with their project. But that's different from a blanket "come back when you're a Rails-powered millionaire, and by the way if you're not one already you'll never amount to anything" attitude as expressed above.

There is no question that a community like that is possible, you'd just have to wait for all the "losers" to clear out. So if that's really what HN is about to you, ramp it up! But lazy malevolence is still not the same as hacker culture, if such a thing even exists as a singular concept.

I disagree with your argument that antagonistic learning becomes self-destructive. For some, it might, but for those who can deal with it, the lesson that researching a topic before asking about that topic is a valuable one.

Also, no one ever said, "come back when you're a Rails-powered millionaire, and by the way if you're not one already you'll never amount to anything". That's not what's happening above, at all. I agree, if that were the case, that's boring and unhelpful, but that's not at all what happened. That's too specific. The above took place because of the obvious and unnecessary trickery in the submission - people don't like to be taken as fools.

That's the right attitude! :3

/s

The right attitude is to not throw shit to the wall and see if it sticks, but to think of an idea and commit to it. With commitment comes the responsibility of doing right by your users, finishing your idea out and not giving up two weeks later. If you aren't prepared for it, if you aren't committed, if you are already nearly burned out from the work you've already put in and have no traction to speak of, well then maybe just leave it alone.

I noticed the general rate at which shit is thrown at walls to check for stickiness seems to have gone up exponentially ever since the lean startup movement became popular.

Well, you know Y-combinator, 500startups, etc. are part of that movement.

It s funny too, because people complain about the lack of innovation and/or people not working on hard/meaningful problems, etc. I happen to agree with that complaint, but it boggles my mind that many don't seem to connect it with the lean startup culture. Seems like a pretty natural consequence.

You've already lumped every project people submit to crap not worth using. Nice generalization. Oh, except your projects of course.

Which project/idea have you committed to?

This is an anonymous account so I wont list them, but a couple of them that you probably know of.

Yeah I don't like how this statement came across.

I agree. You haven't failed until you quit.

I actually love (and share) your opinion(s) on startup culture.

However, as someone who really does commit to projects (as in, will work on them 6 months after the checks stop rolling in) this list is pretty great. Free traffic from early adopters is a good way to test a new product.

I do think there's a time and a place for this though. Know your market. Free traffic/press is nice, but only if you want a bunch of tech nerds using your stuff.

Not sure if I agree with the second paragraph of this. But the original comment has a point.

CrunchBase and AngelList are meant to be directories of companies. While side projects often turn into companies, there is a difference at least initially. Uploading a weekend side project to these sites is creating noise rather than signal.

It's the job of CrunchBase and AngelList to separate the wheat from the chaff.

There's nothing wrong with hoping a side project becomes a bigger thing, and using available tools to try to make that a reality. Some side projects do go on to be very successful. Like AngelList.

This is brutal, but very true. Now, according HN etiquette, this comment should be downvoted to infinity for supporting you, too.