Hacker News Reader

why news.ycombinator? why not news.hacker.com or hackernews.com?

Because it is a marketing funnel for ycombinator.

then why call it 'hacker news' colloquially?

HN, originally called Startup News and later renamed to Hacker News, is a news board hosted by Y Combinator. Hence news.ycombinator.com. There's no hard rule saying that the official name of something has to be 1:1 match to its domain. And sure, YC could move HN to a separate domain, but why bother? Everyone's used to news.ycombinator.com.

Colloquially? "Hacker News" is its formal name.

It was also originally Startup News, and changed names about (iirc) 12 months later.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com