HackerTube clones show how cheap building has become

HackerTube (YouTube built from videos recommended on HN) spawned a chain of copies within a day: HackerBooks for books, Wikihack for Wikipedia articles, and HackerHack for posts. One commenter said we are 'past the intellectual curiosity era of Show HN' and into 'its fast food slop age'. Another joked that HackerHackerTube is coming next. HackerBooks was flagged, and someone noted the odd result that Ayn Rand ranked so high.

The pattern here: the idea is trivial to copy, so the copy arrives almost instantly. Reactions were split. HackerHack got praise ('this is what this place deserves', 'afraid this was going to be another HackerSlop, but happily surprised'), so execution and taste still draw a reaction. Elsewhere the mood is harsher. An older Ask HN about flagging AI-generated articles was resurfaced, and the Cliff Stoll thread ('Rumors of my death are slightly exaggerated') is about AI slop that got his own obituary wrong.

The counterpoint: nobody is sure how to detect AI-made content. Commenters note that detectors are unreliable and that voting can be gamed.