HN is still relatively balanced, but I see a lot more reddit style comments. Usually 20 min on HN I find nothing really new, tons of polarizing topics, discussions are decent but ultimately pointless, I really feel like I need to take a break.
Even niche reddit communities end up being full of newbies and self promotion spam. There are exceptions (/r/steroids comes to mind back when I was into that) but programming/tech subreddits are just noise.
r/steroids used to be great but the pandemic really turned it toxic imo. Pandemic made so many subs polarized and awful to read. everything was trending negative before but now it's another level feels like.
Even niche reddit communities end up being full of newbies and self promotion spam. There are exceptions (/r/steroids comes to mind back when I was into that) but programming/tech subreddits are just noise.