genuinely unbelievable that the story is so highly voted with such a vague title

The clickbait makes you click, and the story is about a cool hack, so you upvote. I don't see how this is unbelievable

hn readers aren't usually so easily baited

Yes, they absolutely are. HN is not as niche as it used to be, and clickbait works on everyone.

normies are online! let them fade, along with the post

I completely disagree. The point is the impact it has on lives, not the tools used to build it. I would enjoy it if more people focused their writing on the impact their work has on people, and less on the tools and processes used. Or at the very least, clearly delineate the build from the impact.

I see where you're coming from, but I like the way the story is formatted.

There's plenty to doom and gloom about with the state of tech right now, but this is a good reminder that sometimes even Big Internet tools, with a little ingenuity, can sometimes be repurposed to serve the users and not some corporation's bottom line.

It's kind of a throwback to the olden days where you might stand up an IRC server or something similar just for your friend group. I like seeing people returning to the small internet where it serves as a substrate for real people doing real things.

It sounds like we agree. I wasn't dissing the article - I was saying that I like this article's writing and want to see more of it, and that I appreciated the title not being about the tech stack.