The main issue was that looking at the actual content meant visiting a different website, there was no way to see photos and videos in gallery view like you would on Facebook for example.
The difference with HN is that HN is not mainly for media. However HN isn’t great either. The button to collapse threads in on top of the thread in a 16x16-pixel touch target. Good luck finding it when you’re 12 comments down.
For being a text comment-only website, the HN experience is pretty poor. The only good thing HN has got going on technically is that it’s super fast. Heck it still doesn’t offer dark mode when it would literally be 7 additional lines of CSS.
Oh I see, your main issue wasn't with the UI design, it was with the UX design. The original intention was that it acted as a gateway to content on the internet - like with Google.
Unfortunately that UX isn't the best because most sites linked to are slow, annoying or broken in some way. Imgur fixed that though.
Reddit Enhancement Suite fixed all that. Sure it's a plugin but that's not that big of an inconvenience. Reddit devs really should have took inspiration from that instead of building the monstrosity they have now.
