If you follow HN over the course of 24 hours, you’ll see at least 3 major waves. I tend to have an odd sleep schedule, so I’m always amused when I’m online to see which group is currently active.
There is an Asian/Australian wave, followed by Europe, and the North America. Some of the best times are when the waves start to mix (ex: early morning NYC time, you’ll get the Europe and NA groups interacting).
You’ll see different types of stories posted. Similar enough to where it all makes sense to be on HN, but it seems like a different flavor. But the comments are where I start to see more differences. You can get new takes on the same article if you see the comments from different times of the day.
This doesn’t take into account the total numbers of people active from each region, which I suspect is skewed towards more users the US coasts. But, it does, I think, speak to how US centric HN is. I think it serves the needs each of the waves in a distinct way.
In many ways, this is just an extension of the weekend HN effect. You can clearly observe differences on the site over the weekends. So, to me, it is unsurprising that you’d find differences across time zones. I’d love to actually see this analyzed more. This is just the take from someone who has been awake at enough hours to observe some anecdotal trends.
Two of my blog posts were on the front page earlier this year, netting 56k unique visitors. The visits were spread over multiple days, and should cover different timezones somewhat well. The analytics are located at an endpoint which looks vital, and should bypass most adblockers.
It is noticeable how since covid SV takes this place dramatically less seriously, largely because it used to be the case that getting to the top here got you a lot of attention in SV, but that hasn’t been the case in years.
Probably more to do with HN being a tech community, and the US is the largest highly developed country where a lot of kids can learn tech stuff. So you get a disproportionate number of programmers and related professionals who are American.
If Silicon Valley were in the UK I think most HN contributers would still be American.
I think biggest issue is that you'll get a certain sub-segment of the HN audience, even if many use ad blockers. For example, all your latest submissions seems to be about AI/LLM, career growth and product engineering, probably someone submitting stories in other themes will get different data.
I've seen a few Brazilians (like me) lurking around sometimes, so certainly there are people from LatAm. I'd wager the distribution of countries that read Hacker News and the distribution for people who comment might be slightly different. The distributions linked in another comment seem somewhat unreal to me, but perhaps I'm just imagining every English-speaking person on the internet as an American LOL.
Also, the other comment regarding the time zones is absolutely real. It's a fun experiment to check out Hacker News at unusual times of the day and observe the differences in content and especially in the comments section.
Pretty sure santa works east-west, starting at the international date line. He stretches Christmas day into 48 hours. This is how he can do so many deliveries in a single date.
If you follow HN over the course of 24 hours, you’ll see at least 3 major waves. I tend to have an odd sleep schedule, so I’m always amused when I’m online to see which group is currently active.
There is an Asian/Australian wave, followed by Europe, and the North America. Some of the best times are when the waves start to mix (ex: early morning NYC time, you’ll get the Europe and NA groups interacting).
You’ll see different types of stories posted. Similar enough to where it all makes sense to be on HN, but it seems like a different flavor. But the comments are where I start to see more differences. You can get new takes on the same article if you see the comments from different times of the day.
This doesn’t take into account the total numbers of people active from each region, which I suspect is skewed towards more users the US coasts. But, it does, I think, speak to how US centric HN is. I think it serves the needs each of the waves in a distinct way.
In many ways, this is just an extension of the weekend HN effect. You can clearly observe differences on the site over the weekends. So, to me, it is unsurprising that you’d find differences across time zones. I’d love to actually see this analyzed more. This is just the take from someone who has been awake at enough hours to observe some anecdotal trends.
Two of my blog posts were on the front page earlier this year, netting 56k unique visitors. The visits were spread over multiple days, and should cover different timezones somewhat well. The analytics are located at an endpoint which looks vital, and should bypass most adblockers.
35.1% United States
8.0% Germany
6.5% United Kingdom
5.4% Canada
3.1% Australia
3.0% France
2.7% Netherlands
2.6% India
2.4% Sweden
1.9% Poland
1.7% Switzerland
1.6% Spain
1.4% Japan
1.4% Belgium
1.3% Italy
1.1% Austria
1.1% Finland
1.0% Norway
1.0% Brazil
7.0% Other countries
No China or Russia? Strange…
Nobody here talks of Africa, we are here too
Africa is here
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35567986
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44572750
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30210378
These comments from dang in 2018 are worth linking as well
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16633521
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16444556
It is noticeable how since covid SV takes this place dramatically less seriously, largely because it used to be the case that getting to the top here got you a lot of attention in SV, but that hasn’t been the case in years.
I've never worked anywhere even close to SV, so I don't know how true any of this is.
But the idea that things happen in SV because someone basically got fancy reddit upvotes is sort of concerning.
Wow, my initial guess would have been it's overwhelmingly full of Americans.
>Would be curious: Is it US-centered? How much people from LatAm or SEA? EU?
Why would it not be US centered? YC is an US company.
Overall, US + Canada is 50 - 60%. UK + EU is 25 - 35%. You could find post that lands on HN frontage showing their stats.
Is Facebook US-centered? I don't think that means much.
Facebook is a different company, YC doesn't target general public and neither does HN
Probably more to do with HN being a tech community, and the US is the largest highly developed country where a lot of kids can learn tech stuff. So you get a disproportionate number of programmers and related professionals who are American.
If Silicon Valley were in the UK I think most HN contributers would still be American.
After years of lurking, I made some posts this year here. Here is what my Google Analytics and Substack traffic from HN shows:
51% US
5% United Kingdom
4% Germany
3% Australia, Canada, India
The rest are primarily European countries, with Sweden, Denmark, France, and Spain leading the way.
* Most people here use ad blockers. I imagine this data is incomplete and would reflect the mobile portion of the users. I don't log IP addresses.
I think biggest issue is that you'll get a certain sub-segment of the HN audience, even if many use ad blockers. For example, all your latest submissions seems to be about AI/LLM, career growth and product engineering, probably someone submitting stories in other themes will get different data.
I've seen a few Brazilians (like me) lurking around sometimes, so certainly there are people from LatAm. I'd wager the distribution of countries that read Hacker News and the distribution for people who comment might be slightly different. The distributions linked in another comment seem somewhat unreal to me, but perhaps I'm just imagining every English-speaking person on the internet as an American LOL.
Also, the other comment regarding the time zones is absolutely real. It's a fun experiment to check out Hacker News at unusual times of the day and observe the differences in content and especially in the comments section.
A while back, someone made https://meet.hn. It's a map where people from hackernews could locate themselves.
Of course this is by far not comprehensive, but it gives you an idea of where the people are from.
You should repeat this poll
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30210378
I imagine it's majority Americans. I'd guess over 70% Americans.
Where is Africa? Kenya? Arrgh.
I am from the North Pole. My name is Santa Claus.
Shouldn't you be sleeping? You've had a busy 24 hours.
Pretty sure santa works east-west, starting at the international date line. He stretches Christmas day into 48 hours. This is how he can do so many deliveries in a single date.