Readers struggle to navigate and follow online discussion threads
Readers say it is tedious to find relevant replies, move through long comment trees, and notice what has changed since their last visit. Existing discussion views leave some wanting controls such as read/unread state, tree-versus-flat layouts, and bookmarks for returning later. Requests to edit posts or reply to every response are related platform frustrations, but a discussion reader may not be able to provide those actions.
For hacker News and Bluesky readers who follow discussions. Mentioned from Oct 2023 to Jul 2026 on Bluesky and Hacker News.
11 different people described this problem in 11 separate discussions.
- Indie fit
- 2.0/10
- Pain
- 4.4/10
- Frequency
- 9.0/10
- Willingness to pay
- 4.3/10
- Momentum
- 5.0/10
- Who pays
- Consumers
- Competition
- Medium
- Build difficulty
- Medium
What people said
Quoted word for word. Follow a link to read the whole discussion.
No, HN doesn’t have read/unread state, and also cuts off discussions after a day. This makes checking for new comments tedious, and prevents any longer discussions
layer8 on Hacker NewsMay 2024Imagine a threaded mail reader with this feature from say, 1987? I would pay for a threaded HN news reader
Build brief
See what to build and who will buy it
- 1 product idea with the smallest useful version and pricing
- 3 places to find your first customers
- 9 more quotes from people who have this problem
- Current workarounds, existing solutions and risks