While I suspect the average hacker news commenter can afford the discretionary income to subscribe to the nytimes and Washington Post, I also suspect most have access to the publications at their local public library, if not more locally at their place of business, or other places with news publications available.
As a "news aggregator site" , I suspect there is some quality increase if the community has enough interest in news to put some of these minimal efforts forward.
The quantity of nytimes articles posted and the popularity of those from votes to comments to thorough discussion indicates that a significant portion of the community derives value from these paid sources.
To be contrary, the times gets many more posts than the BBC, nih, and posts from other available free sources (Berkely, Stanford, MIT student papers or research) seem much more rare.
While I suspect the average hacker news commenter can afford the discretionary income to subscribe to the nytimes and Washington Post, I also suspect most have access to the publications at their local public library, if not more locally at their place of business, or other places with news publications available.
As a "news aggregator site" , I suspect there is some quality increase if the community has enough interest in news to put some of these minimal efforts forward.
The quantity of nytimes articles posted and the popularity of those from votes to comments to thorough discussion indicates that a significant portion of the community derives value from these paid sources.
To be contrary, the times gets many more posts than the BBC, nih, and posts from other available free sources (Berkely, Stanford, MIT student papers or research) seem much more rare.