That seems counter-productive and simple to disprove. I've done four tests:
* Grabbed the official RSS feed¹ via `curl`.
* Opened the front page in Safari with Private Relay² turned on.
* Opened the front page in a Chromium browser.
* Opened the front page on a phone, through cellular.
All showed the same content. Plus, you can revisit the front page of other days³. So either they don’t personalise the front page or they’d need to go to great lengths to conceal it (perhaps targeting specific users).
* Grabbed the official RSS feed¹ via `curl`.
* Opened the front page in Safari with Private Relay² turned on.
* Opened the front page in a Chromium browser.
* Opened the front page on a phone, through cellular.
All showed the same content. Plus, you can revisit the front page of other days³. So either they don’t personalise the front page or they’d need to go to great lengths to conceal it (perhaps targeting specific users).
¹ https://news.ycombinator.com/rss
² https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212614
³ https://news.ycombinator.com/front