It has homogenized a bit, but perhaps this is why more contrary opinions need to speak up. I find myself often reading an interesting exchange that ends in a squinty grey section of text, and I sit there for a moment, frustrated, and trying to figure out what the dissenters downvoting see that I don't. Perhaps more well-reasoned rebuttals would be what HN needs to bring some of the old flavor back.

Before you ignore me and pass on, I've been active here for enough years to remember when you could discuss just about anything and people almost gravitated to a contrarian opinion to figure out how someone could get such a different view. People now seem too quick to downvote with no comment, which in my opinion is a loss for anybody following up after that who is missing that context.

It is the conversational equivalent of the person who makes a forum question about an obscure bug that goes on for about 30 replies or so, and then at the end its just the intrepid OP showing up to say "thanks guys its fixed" and nobody has a clue what got fixed or how. To me, this is the laziest form of discourse, and I think it is worsened by people being too comfy in their peer groups and despite advocating for diversity, not valuing diversity of concepts and viewpoints.