Ask HN: Does anyone feel Product Hunt drifted away?

I would agree, and I would say that there are way too many products on the page daily; it should really be curbed at 10 or perhaps even less. I also feel like there are too many books/guides posted.

I totally agree, trying to be a very closed community never helps!! Now, they even shut down submission for users with no recommendation from one of their elite members!!

I've noticed that the same sites/apps will be submitted several days in a row, which is irritating. And it doesn't help that the comments are so restricted. It's rare that you see anything other than "wow, this is fantastic"-type comments. Not a lot of real discussion happening there, which may or may not be the point.

It used to feel curated, and now it doesn't really feel that way. But maybe I'm just being old and stodgy. :)

ProductHunt seems like one of those sites that get a lot more press/attention than they deserve. Nobody outside the tech bubble really cares about them.

Absolutely. It used to be more signal than noise. It feels like the "growth hacker" community (I used to be one of them btw, so not judging) saw it as some "viral" platform for posting their products. It's a walled garden in terms of submissions too, so when I find something I really think is cool and helpful, I cant even submit it.

Something I noticed is that anytime Ryan comments on the product or likes the product, it's usually the most-voted product. It seems to be heavily biased-often times, for two products that do the exact same thing, one gets to the front page and the other doesn't because it has the backing of Ryan or some other big name hunters.

I agree. I think the biggest issue is the type of audience that visits the site

It used to be a cool site but now the top voted products on any given day are sites that just lists things like free stock photos, free icons etc...

It still has a lot of potential they just have to do a bit of quality control.

Yea - unfortunately it seems like only the 'elite' members get a say (and the ability to promote their product continuously).

Unfortunately, I have no idea what criteria they use to determine whether someone is elite or not. I'm one of the first 200 users on the site [1], had my own product submitted to the site (with over 100 upvotes [2]) and I STILL can't comment or submit posts.

[1] http://www.producthunt.com/@taphangum [2] http://www.producthunt.com/posts/myapptemplates

I think PH as a community has grown - with more users, visibility and products added every day. And that means the only way to keep the community clean is by putting up some walls.

When you throw a few hundred great products, their makers, and thousands of tech enthusiasts into one place, it's not easy to strike a balance between "content policing" and "random garbage". Somebody IS going to be hurt...

Our product was submitted by a user and won well over 100 votes last year (http://www.producthunt.com/posts/germio) - when it was still way too early for us to even dream of that kind of spotlight. ProductHunt was a great source of feedback and traffic then - as it is now, and I think this is one of the most beautiful tech communities alive today.