1) No ads
2) The wealth of FILTERED information you get everyday without browsing any other website<p>I used to waste so much time on techcrunch, venturebeat, techmeme, slashdot, google news, mashable, engadget and the likes. But, thanks to HN, not anymore. :)
I'll chip in with the "2 worst things I hate about HN", since I enjoy being contrary.<p>1) The groupthink that arises in certain political/scientific/social debates. I find that the nontech debates here are more uniform and less varied than they are on sites with similar quality.<p>2) While the site's filtration is good, the fact that its only two lenses are "news" and "jobs" makes the community less flexible and, frequently, less engaging.<p>It's still easily a top three social news site, though, so I'll resume my lurking and quit being a pest.
1. HN is one of the few places where I constantly bump into people who are simultaneously more knowledgeable, more intelligent, and more accomplished than I am. Humbling, challenging, and rewarding.<p>2. I love that this is a community where smart people help other smart people navigate life, from deciding what to major in, to picking a database server, to dealing with an unruly roommate.
HN loads extremely quickly. I can generally scan through a page of comments quicker than the linked article while their rendering is blocked on 3rd party scripts/ads
For me its:<p>1) Subject Matter of the articles.
for the most part the articles on here are right on target in what I am interested in.I know lately there has been talk of some cruft getting through, but for the most part the quality of articles to make it to front page is high.<p>2) Community
I find that the community here is respectful and the members tend(and their comments) to be quite knowledgeable and highly focused. The community in general is a positive one.
News aggregators are useful if they convince me to read something useful that I otherwise wouldn't have seen.<p>A few seconds before I saw this question, I saw the link to "The Economics of Suicide". Surely a recipe for content-free emoting, that I would usually ignore ... but with 20 up-votes on a Saturday night. And I'm better off for having read it.<p>I still skim Slashdot, too. That's just a different selection of things I wouldn't have otherwise seen, but sometimes enjoy.
For me it's:<p>1. I don't have to be in a vacuum anymore. If I read something on the internet and form an opinion about it, I can post it here and see what others think. I can also comment on any discussion, and soon enough I'll probably get feedback. I simply don't have that many people in my life with whom I can have this interaction about things I care about.<p>2. I don't have to <i>be</i> alone. I usually work from home alone for long hours. Some days, being one alt-click away from like minded people keeps me going.
I like that when I see a comment that I'm tempted to downvote (if I could), several people have already taken care of that for me.<p>Also, the amount of cross-disciplinary knowledge the community brings to bear on most issues is pleasantly humbling.
I had never even visited techcrunch, venturebeat, mashable or engadget before stumbling upon HN. There are a ton of links to these sites.<p>But the thoughtful and insightful discussion by like-minded developers is a breath of fresh air.
I disagree. Techmeme is better for quick news scans.<p>And the level of discourse here is better than most places, but the time decay of stories (and comments) leads to quick bursts of discussion near the top, followed by dead silence.
The articles posted here are always interesting and of good quality. The comments are well-mannered without a bunch of idiots ruining the posts (most of the time anyway).
1. Meeting people! (Whether through the comments here or through #startups)<p>2. People help each other! (Ask HN, website feedback, participating in betas, etc)
Compared to, for example Programming Reddit, HN has:<p>1. Good quality links (less fluff, and good links are often more visible here)
2. Good quality comments.