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Hacker News.love – 22 projects Hacker News didn't love

Every great project was once called a bad idea

hackernews.love

February 23, 2026

15 min read

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59/100

Summary

Many projects initially dismissed by Hacker News have since become successful, illustrating the unpredictability of innovation. Users can create a Linux-based system using an FTP account, curlftpfs for local mounting, and version control systems like SVN or CVS.

Key Takeaways

Dropbox IPO'd in 2018 at a $12 billion valuation after being initially dismissed as a bad idea on Hacker News.
GitHub was perceived as merely a git host but was acquired by Microsoft in 2018 for $7.5 billion and now hosts over 100 million developers.
Bitcoin's value increased from fractions of a cent in 2009 to over $100,000 by 2024, despite initial skepticism and low engagement in discussions about it.
DuckDuckGo grew to over 100 million daily search queries and became the default search engine in many privacy-focused browsers, valued at over $600 million, despite early criticism of its name.

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Community Sentiment

Mixed

Positives

DuckDuckGo has significantly improved its search quality over the years, now providing a competitive alternative to Google, which is crucial for user privacy.
The response to Warp's updates shows that addressing user criticisms can lead to increased popularity and satisfaction, highlighting the importance of user feedback in product development.

Concerns

The sentiment around DuckDuckGo's initial utility was quite negative, with users finding it less useful compared to Google, indicating challenges in competing search engine markets.
The comment about the AI piece suggests a lack of depth in the analysis, implying that the insights may not be as valuable as they could be, which raises concerns about the quality of AI-generated content.