HN Explorer

Ask HN: Product Hunt is dead. What happened?

7 points by debdut ↗ HN
A few years back, I stumbled upon Product Hunt and was absolutely blown away by the caliber of products showcased there. Each upvote felt significant and Product of Day or Month meant something. I was addicted to it like many people are addicted to HN. I used to check the front page multiple times a day.

However, with the onset of COVID-19, the platform underwent a strange transformation. The quality of the products featured began to dwindle, with many of them being nothing more than Notion templates, Airtable lists, and design collections. In fact, it became a challenge to find a genuinely innovative product amid the sea of mediocre offerings.

Months would pass without a single noteworthy release, and Product Hunt started to feel like a hub for deceptive bundle and templates selling snake oil salesmen.

Witnessing the platform's decline in this manner has been heartbreaking, particularly since I began my own product journey inspired by the groundbreaking products I discovered on Product Hunt in the past.

3 comments

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curtisblaine
It looked like a clique-y place where a bunch of people decided to push products based on their founder's connections, at least to me. I'm happy to be wrong, but it really was that, it seems physiological that it was destined (and deserved to) die.
vmoore
I check it nearly every day and there's always new SaaS products being released. It's far from dead IMHO. Yeah the fluff has increased lately, but that happens to all social networks once a certain member count has been reached. It no longer feels like an elite club.