As a consumer of Product Hunt (I used to browse it at least 4-5x/week), it has become completely overrun with AI "spam," low effort apps, and comments that are just variations of "this looks nice!" (likely AI-generated spam too). It's genuinely hard to find good apps there any more, although I assume it still brings a decent amount of traffic.
When it works, it works (as in, when you're first or second product of the day, you can count on it being a consistent source of traffic for months to come).<p>Don't be fooled into thinking a couple of hours spent on a Product Hunt launch is real marketing though. You need consistent effort, not a big bang.
The last time I genuinely discovered a product on PH was 2018 (Coda). I subscribed for a while, but didn't see much since then. I think this is the common experience. Since then, lots of top stuff have been waitlist because people are using product hunt launches to validate demand now.<p>PH is basically a social media for selling stuff. It's a community for selling stuff. It's for the people who want to say, "hey vote for me on product hunt, I need your support!" It's something like LinkedIn. More effective than using X or getting on a podcast. There's probably better ways to market, but it works for people who aren't good at marketing.<p>I think the Golden Kitty awards has some value, though. Could probably end up like the GRAMMYs for product or something.
The answer is: Yes.<p>The answer with more details is: The core of Product Hunt has dead but it could continue to make money because Product Hunt has become a place where people wanting to get traffic has to go but not a website people like to visit.
I got bored of it a few years ago when it basically became a thing for people selling expensive notion templates and thinking they had created some form of amazing product or 'operating system'