PG married hacker culture with "crass" commercialism, empowering capable people everywhere.
Before this "scene", hackers talked about "PHBs" and "cow-orkers"; working for The Man was a necessary evil that everyone had to put up with, witness the talented but bored BoFH, who LARTs lusers and generally channels his unhappiness with work through mischief and abuse.
Nowadays "lusers" are hackers' best friend, we're busy finding solutions to better their lives and improve our economic situation at the same time. Colleagues are peers, hand picked and chosen by us. It's a true meritocracy.
I would pay for HN (with the option to ban Tech Crunch posts and other fluff mongers, at least until the official launch date of my startup ;-)
Hm..I would say both. A good community encourages good content (and discourages bad content). Having said that, the real content of HN is, ofcourse, the discussions!
Could you also please create a similar filter for newmogul.com ?
It is a HN clone for business/financial news run by "nickb".