There's an opportunity cost for every feature added, and it's not just the time lost in implementation. More features = more code, which means more things you have to consider each time you add the next feature. More features = more interface complexity, which means additional things that your users have to consider each time they use the site. More complexity also tends to scare off new users. And more features = more bugs, which is a further drain on productivity in the future.
Didn't we just have this thread yesterday when Google introduced a few new features that everyone seems to hate? ("Changing crap", I believe PG called them.)
Besides, the argument isn't that you shouldn't add features unless the lack of the feature would lose users. It's that you should be careful which features you add so that you can spend your limited resources on the features that truly delight your users. Big companies usually aren't mediocre because they're complacent (well, perhaps except GM). They become mediocre because their userbase is broad enough that every feature they introduce will piss someone off, so they end up with collections of features such that any given person will love 10% of the product and loathe the remaining 90%.
Ok, but honestly, do you think or not that 3 lines of html code should be added, submitting to searchyc.com? I think most of the users here strongly agree.
This community is already pretty positively biased towards YC, note that there is no added value provided by HN technologically, it's just a matter of community. So it would be wise to avoid pushing hard the YC search startup if users don't like it.
Also the "I'm wasting my time" replying to this comment is the wrong attitude. Paul Graham and everybody else is supposed to just reply or not if he got something better to do, but replying this way honestly is not great.
I think that there should be a link to Search, either Google or SearchYC (I'm biased towards Google because I work there, but SearchYC is a good site too). Which there is, now.
I don't think there should be a search box. The canonical position to put a search box is either top center or top right of the page, but there's no room for it there - he'd have to either remove some of the top bar links or shift the whole page down. Shifting the page down is a mistake; part of the appeal of HN is that the focus is on content. And honestly, I find that all the links on the top row are more useful than search would be.
I agree that "I'm wasting my time" is the wrong attitude. He should have said nothing. It's ironic, though, that this sort of uncommunication is exactly what people lambast corporations for. A lot of corporate anti-patterns arise because they're the best response to an impossible tradeoff, not because corporations are stupid.
Didn't we just have this thread yesterday when Google introduced a few new features that everyone seems to hate? ("Changing crap", I believe PG called them.)
Besides, the argument isn't that you shouldn't add features unless the lack of the feature would lose users. It's that you should be careful which features you add so that you can spend your limited resources on the features that truly delight your users. Big companies usually aren't mediocre because they're complacent (well, perhaps except GM). They become mediocre because their userbase is broad enough that every feature they introduce will piss someone off, so they end up with collections of features such that any given person will love 10% of the product and loathe the remaining 90%.