I don't have a problem with people bragging about a thing they made. I think if someone spent a bunch of time on a thing, I'll give them time to be proud of the work they did and give them space to show off.
if it's something I'm interested in. The difference between "ShowHN: I built a thing", and "ShowHN: thing" seems inconsequential to me.
But you know that one about how naming things is an unsolved problem in computer science? Looking at random search results, I think it's more about it being a more natural way to describe something. "Show HN: I built a thing that does blah", rather than "Show HN: Foobar, a thing that does blah".
If I do "Show hn: George", what's George? vs "Show HN: I made a thing that does foo called George"
Interestingly enough, there are only 805 results for "Show HN: We" vs 5,060 results for "Show HN: I", What a bunch of loners we are.
I see "I made X that does Y" as self promotion. You're not prmmoting X, your prmoting the fact that "I" made it. You're smart. People should take you seriously. They should offer you jobs and/or praise. Of course you're secondarily promoting X but only in the cause of promoting yourself
I see "X, an app that does Y" as promoting X and sayuhg "reader, you might find X useful if you want to do Y"
The purpose of the posts are entirely different.
Your observation on "We" is interesting though I suspect that teams are more likely to write "X, and app that does Y" because "We made X" doesn't achieve the self promotion goals in the same way as "I made X"
Another question is, why do you have such a problem with people promoting themselves? On the Internet, no one knows who your sockpuppet is. So if you come across a post that says look at this cool thing I found on the Internet, and you feel one way about it, vs someone says look at this cool thing I made, vs I'm cool, look at this thing I made, and then you feel a third way about the exact same thing.
