Right? As a teenager on overclocking forums there was a strong mod presence and you knew them. They were quick to delete any shit and keep a lid on the drama - playing a very effective ‘big brother’ role for the rest of us to have a great time.

What makes this impossible is the scale that people assume you need to cater for. When you limit your population to a reasonable size then moderation is easy and everyone gets to know the expectations of the community.

Yep this is it. These social media companies don't want to moderate because it costs too much.

Unfortunately we have built a world in which people can live stream terrorist attacks or child rape.

Well, that's why we use HN. So far no ads, how long that lasts is anyone's guess.

HN does have ads.

It has some job postings yes but they are really few and far between. And really inconspicuous. And don't try to track us across the internet.

If all ads were like this we wouldn't hate them.

And I don't think they will start. It's good advertising for Ycombinator (I'd never heard of them before) and it doesn't cost a fortune to run really. They have one employee (or maybe 2 now?) and it all runs on one physical server. It's not a meta with a huge workforce and offices and datacenters all over the world.