I really wish Ryan Hoover would take back the integrity of Product Hunt. It's such an amazing product with such currently painful execution, assumingly in the name of site traffic traded for ad dollars.
I truly think that the conversion rate for advertisers on PH would go UP if the quality of the site (moderated posts, comments, bot traffic) did the same.
I'm consistently baffled by the rarity of a product owner improving their bottom line by simply improving their users' experience.
I think the calculation is made on the sum of user experience.
Any activity can be made worse if they find a way to increase users by other means.
It's not quick enough. People want juicy returns quickly. Consequences be damned.
I left the site even before Ryan left, but yeah, he was the best person to steward it at forward. It’s been junk for a very long time.
Whatever happened to him that he gave up such a valuable resource for the community? I don't think it can be saved at this point though.