I currently feel like I’m in a place where the cool stuff is something I can’t use because it’s too technical, not fully dependable, or just a cool concept at the end of the day.<p>What value have you gained from hacker news submissions or comments that has helped you in your life?<p>This is not meant to make HN look bad.
I really like how critical HN can be sometimes. It makes you reflect on what you're writing very carefully.<p>There's also a bunch of subject matter experts lurking here. There's nothing better than when you have lay people discussing say, nuclear reactors and an actual nuclear physicist or engineer chimes in.<p>As far as content, I really read it more for the weird little obscure articles that are terribly interesting, more than I do for keeping up on tech. However, it is interesting to skim the comments of a submission for a particular technology stack: it really helps give insight into where that particular tech is going and how it's actually used in the real world.<p>There's also a lot of deeply personal, candid stories on here that I enjoy reading. HN is a forum run by a startup accelerator after all, so there's no shortage of people who have tried and failed repeatedly here. It's a wealth of knowledge and experience I'm very thankful to have.
Discovering patio11, codinghorror, tptacek, ahoyhere etc has made tremendous impact on my career / ways of thinking. I would have never negotiated higher salary or shipped my own apps / books without reading their HN comments / blog. It allowed me to work lesser hours and earn money from products.
A random article on hacker news completely changed how I job search. This has led to several jobs I don't think I would have found otherwise.<p>The article was not about job search, it was a post reviewing a tech talk about technology that as you say may have been "too technical" for me at the time<p>This is not to say that I use hacker news for job search
Mostly, it keeps me thinking. I see what people are doing, what they have to say about the latest news, what the latest startups are trying to accomplish. Whatever I think of it all, it invokes some critical thought on the bigger picture of this industry. And I thereby avoid getting caught up in the details of my own work and stagnating.
My ROI is pretty high considering the changes I've been seeing in myself lately. It's a huge step up from reddit and 4chan - I cut those websites out of my life and started browsing HN exclusively not too long ago. My mood has changed, I'm less cynical/jaded, and when I make a comment, I consider the person on the other side of the computer screen. This site is a bit slower, so I've also been getting more work done.
Since you are asking for the 'Return On Invest', I think there are two sides to this medal. I didn't have any large returns, but I like the content that comes up, so I try to limit the resources I invest.<p>I observed that giving my brain new(s) information in the morning makes it harder to concentrate later the same day. So I try to avoid visiting HN in the morning and wait until the afternoon.<p>To improve the noise to signal ratio, I also added a little widget to my new-tab-page showing me the current top 3 news of the 'best' list. That way I don't have to constantly monitor the site and don't miss the big stories either ;-)
I've directly found two jobs through HN, so already that's a massive benefit for me. Aside from that, I feel it's given me a much better grasp of both the breadth and depth of the tech industry.
It's the only place I ever manage to have substantive discussions of medical science. Given my diagnosis, this positively contributes to my failure to be dead yet.
Longtime lurker. I owe my entire career to HN. I was always into programming but never understood the business/startup side behind it. Thought you just had to get a job and unless you were super lucky or rich there wasn't any other way. Discovering HN has shattered this notion and allowed me to live my life the way I always wanted to.
Sometimes rarely I see something that can help me in my job. The recent announcement of v8 Javascript speed improvements was useful to know, and I’d probably not know without HN. I didn’t read the full article but I know if our performance tests suddenly get better when that browser version comes up it might be them not us.
I stick with a saying I came up with: “Make Knowledge Actionable”<p>I gain the most value from Ask HN posts. I used hckrnews.com to identify the top ones. I look at the top comments on these posts. If there are any good insights, I note them and favorite the post.
Immeasurable. I don't do any social media, or networking. HN lets me know what's hot, and I can filter whether or not I need it myself. HN brought me Golang, and I wouldn't have found it so early otherwise.
Same as with twitter: negative ROI. I just hate-read it and get pissed off at all the nitpicky assholes going "well, actually" at each other to no end. It's sad, but I don't know how to stop.