I've noticed this trend as well. It's hard to miss for anyone who's lurked here longer than two years.
That said, I think I know what the culprit is: money. Check out the headlines on the front page. How many titles contain a '$'? Yesterday I saw some big numbers: 100M for github, 20M for stripe, 10M for someone else, plus kayak IPO numbers. Today we've got kickstarter.
As a community, we've become obsessed with money. Bootstrapping revenue, angel rounds, VC funding, acquisitions, IPOs, croudfunding, etc. When people focus on money they get upset. There are a myriad of reasons for this, but the quick version is that it's human nature and basically unavoidable.
So, in short: we think too much about money, and as a consequence we're grumpy.
I think it's related to post-purchase rationalisation. People are emotionally wedded to the tools they use and the paradigms they operate in because changing (or, God forbid, "catching up") implies they've somehow miscalculated or invested their time incorrectly.
Especially in the tech scene, a lot of people see themselves as unappreciated geniuses. The idea that there's a good, simple alternative that will get mass adoption that they haven't thought of doesn't fit that narrative. There must have been a reason they already dismissed the idea, so they approach it skepticism. (The money thing is related to this - unappreciated geniuses deserve a good get-rich-quick scheme, after all.)
I think the point is that because the number of startups & startup-related financial events are higher, those 30 stories contain more startup-related financial event stories than previously.
Hey, you're on the 'message board' of a professional investment firm. What did you expect, a bunch of altruists totally not hoping all their comment karma will magically cause them to be called up by PG and swept into the next YC round on a golden carpet of SV-Angel convertible notes?
Technically this is hacker news, a site for links/news about hacking and things hackers would find interesting. While startups have always been something the site has featured, over the years it seems to have shifted significantly more toward a startup/money focus which is why I've personally reduced my reading here by a fair amount.
Recently I've been finding that my twitter feed is a much better way to get my dose of hacking related stuff -- if you follow the right people it's wonderful! (It's kind of sad that I have resorted to that though, since HN did open my eyes to a lot of things back in high school.)
True, but I'd wager the majority of readers/commenters are not investors but entrepreneurs. It'd be nice to see more support and can-do-ness rather than dumping on ideas. More constructive criticism than that's stupid and will never work.
The entrepreneurs are probably faced with a bit of 'zero-sum' syndrome, where if someone else is doing something successful or cool, then they may feel that there is less room in the market for their own idea/product.
I personally come here for tech related stuff (not an entrepreneur, don't particularly care to become one) but still find myself getting caught up in the latest funding BS news. Unfortunately, SV (and HN) seems to be getting watered down with a lot of money-chasers. Of course, I am sure someone, somewhere was saying the exact same thing 30 years ago, so whatever...
That said, I think I know what the culprit is: money. Check out the headlines on the front page. How many titles contain a '$'? Yesterday I saw some big numbers: 100M for github, 20M for stripe, 10M for someone else, plus kayak IPO numbers. Today we've got kickstarter.
As a community, we've become obsessed with money. Bootstrapping revenue, angel rounds, VC funding, acquisitions, IPOs, croudfunding, etc. When people focus on money they get upset. There are a myriad of reasons for this, but the quick version is that it's human nature and basically unavoidable.
So, in short: we think too much about money, and as a consequence we're grumpy.