HN Explorer

ASL HN: Is HN partly adding (inadvertantly) to the enshitification of the web?

5 points by Berniek ↗ HN
Do a search for "13yo beats tetris". Now read each search result in order and take note of the DIFFERENCES in each article/website. So what happened?

Well one of the very early reports/blog/information appeared on HN. A search on that day would possibly find the original source or more likely the "new" category report on HN. What i think then happened, is that various news services picked up the story and modified it enough to claim "fair usage". Trouble is most of these secondary reports were not complete because they had been modified and cut down, no comments taken into account.

Like most news services, they were not letting any facts get in the way of a good story.

Now the bloggers and social media picked it up from the news reports and added to the mix without ever needing to be complete or even close to the original.

These people have lots of followers and make money from advertising so don't really care about truth or authenticity, its all about clicks. No time stamping either.

Now when you do a search with most search engines you are hard pressed to find the original story much less any accurate or complete 'children" of that original post.

The search engines with their advertising maximizing value algorithmic results at the expense of "truth" or "real" or "complete" alter results we are looking for. This ensures the original source on the web has been replaced by a poor, usually inaccurate, and sometimes completely wrong sources.

The enshitification net is now complete.

(I don't think HN is at fault, but like google/bing/amazom/microsoft, HN finds itself as a web influencer its its own right)

6 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 22.2 ms ] thread
thebuilderjr
The process you've outlined is a classic example of the telephone game gone digital. Remarkable stories, like the 13-year-old Tetris prodigy, often become raw material for a content mill that’s geared towards engagement rather than accuracy. Each retelling introduces new distortions as outlets race to publish their own versions, sidestepping depth for speed and sensation. It's a tale of decay, where the signal gets progressively weaker with every hop.

This reflects a broader systemic issue within the attention economy. The currency here isn't truth; it's engagement, clicks, and ad revenue. In such an economy, the incentive to maintain the integrity of information is often outweighed by the push for monetization, which naturally leads to sensationalism and loss of nuance.

As for the role of search engines, they are simply a mirror to our collective behavior reinforced through algorithms that prioritize popularity over provenance. The 'enshitification net', as coined, isn't just a network of misinformation but also a reflection of our consumption habits and the value we—as a society—place on quick, digestible content.

In recognising these flaws, platforms like HN indeed find themselves in influencer roles, not by direct action but by virtue of their position within the information ecosystem. Acknowledging this influence is the first step towards fostering a more discerning readership and, hopefully, a more robust information landscape.

paulcole
> HN finds itself as a web influencer

You can ditch the passive voice here. HN is a web influencer by design. It’s a marketing campaign run by a VC firm.

meepmorp
The text you quoted doesn't contain any uses of the passive voice.
paulcole
You’re correction is welcomed.

I believe my point still stands though.

syndacks
Yes. HN is one big advertisement, and the virtue signaling geeks who are so vehemently anti-ads aren’t able to recognize this.