I don't view it as an "apocalypse", but as a very gradual settling under the waves. I still find good articles and interesting discussions here, but I'm on the lookout for 'the next thing', too.
The problem creating a site which beats HN is not chicken and egg. It's bulls. Assuming, I add something to HN, it's still not a user like me that makes or breaks HN. What the link to YC brings is an endless September. What retains freshman to become sophomores is the top of the food chain. How do you get Spolsky and Grellas and MattCutts etc. [e.g. PG] to leave - this is what is working for them.
Ships holed below the waterline don't slip beneath the waves except apocalypticly. Otherwise, wood plugs swell, compartments are sealed, the pumps manned, and a patch applied when time permits - and patching when time permits lends a certain aptness to the analogy.
The time I spend on HN is in part freed up because I have to some degree moved on from other online communities. Some like alt.architecture because they degraded, others because it was "suggested in aboslute terms," and others, more recently because I enjoy less spending with people who engage in more traditional internet behaviors and abide by a different set of norms. In part because, those norms influence my behavior.
