I realize I'm pretty late to the game on commenting here. I don't comment often. I've been on HN for 1558 days and have a karma score of 7. But here are my thoughts.
I use reddit for entertainment purposes (for the most part) and I use HN for educational and inspirational purposes. That was why I started using HN and it is still why I do.
Sure, as the community has grown, there have been more comments that add no value - but they are just more obvious now. It isn't that hard to ignore them and to find the meaningful or useful comments.
On the surface the "cost karma to post" idea sounds great - it certainly wouldn't have much effect on me - but I agree with the various others who think it would discourage unpopular but still very useful and (at times very correct) comments.
If the price to pay to get a well rounded discussion is the presence of vapid commentary - then I'm willing to continue to pay it.
I don't think the fact that people conform is surprising. What is, possibly, surprising is that someone laid it out there - that they are being a conformist.
Typically, in my experience, people aren't that honest with themselves.
How is Makr.io even a real product concept? It appears to be a very limited version of the G+ image editor.. or any other meme maker in existence but with "SHARING" (remixing)
lots of words that could have simply been the last paragraph.
Of course, G+ isn't really a ghost town - it just isnt' anything like facebook. The only valid point is that app.net probably won't succeed - though I disagree that it won't change anything.
I think, as someone pointed out a few days ago, that app.net will convince more startups to start thinking about charging from the get go as opposed to being free to build up critical mass.
I submitted four floors worth of plans for a building on our campus probably close to two months ago; they are still "pending review"
There is no way to get feedback about the process and no indication on where in the queue our submissions are.
There are probably 40 buildings on our campus that I was going to submit floor plans for. However, I was using this first building as a guinea pig of sorts. I can't imagine spending the time to get the other 39, multi-floor, buildings aligned in their system if there is little likelihood they will ever end up in the system for public consumption.
I use reddit for entertainment purposes (for the most part) and I use HN for educational and inspirational purposes. That was why I started using HN and it is still why I do.
Sure, as the community has grown, there have been more comments that add no value - but they are just more obvious now. It isn't that hard to ignore them and to find the meaningful or useful comments.
On the surface the "cost karma to post" idea sounds great - it certainly wouldn't have much effect on me - but I agree with the various others who think it would discourage unpopular but still very useful and (at times very correct) comments.
If the price to pay to get a well rounded discussion is the presence of vapid commentary - then I'm willing to continue to pay it.