It's an important source of educated debate about things currently going on in often very specialized tech news, often between domain experts. Isn't that why you're here?
I wonder whether HN comes close enough to the effeciency of curated sources, conferences or some private circles to mention it as a proxy for staying on top of current developments, because the gems on HN are usually burried under a lot of comments and submissions without any societal significance. I can’t really form an opinion on that since I have never attended to technology assessment conferences and don’t read tech magazines.
If nothing else, I think it serves as a barometer for some sectors of tech's outlook on various visible events. As long as you keep in mind what sort of echo chamber/groupthink to look out for (a task when reading _any_ media) it's served well for me as a jumping off block for finding vectors to explore to better understand an issue.
>I wonder whether HN comes close enough to the effeciency of curated sources, conferences or some private circles to mention it as a proxy for staying on top of current developments.
When a development hits the media, there will be a thread on it at HN, and that thread will contain entire arguments and links to curated sources. The question is where to start to research if you're not an engineer. This is a better place than most.
As I said, I don't know whether they exist. HN might be the best source for the people, but the supreme curt might have access to more efficient sources.
