As a recent user, I've been exploring what shows up and seems interesting vs. actively looking up topics.<p>Assumption: One of the reasons could be the not-so-prominent placement of the search box.<p>Which is also uncommon and unlike most social media platforms.
Every day. Paradoxically putting it at the exact bottom makes it easy to find if you know what you're looking for. Compare it to the search function at the Apple App store which they really don’t want you to find.
Algolia does not work on my Blackberry (as well as 99% of Internets, HN is a rare exception). I use the search heavily typically for founding my comments which might consist some interesting ideas for some further discussions. Also sometimes I enter something like "vim" or "lisp" and getting lost into tons of fruitful discussions. I have never used google even occasionally for searching stuff on HN.