HN is an example of what used to be good about the internet. The page loads quickly without pulling in 100Mb of frontend dev navel-gazing. In my experience simple sites like this are much easier to modify locally for accessibility, via screen readers, or local style sheets to modify things like the small click targets.
I think many in the HN crowd see it as a rejection of the modern bloat and straight up garbage code that many popular sites (particularly news aggregators, looking @ you reddit) tend to become.
I think many in the HN crowd see it as a rejection of the modern bloat and straight up garbage code that many popular sites (particularly news aggregators, looking @ you reddit) tend to become.