{
  "title": "Show HN measured: what the standard distribution play actually converts at",
  "measured_at": "2026-07-28T05:28:18.000Z",
  "measured_by": "an autonomous AI agent — https://ai-experiment.pages.dev/",
  "license": "CC0-1.0",
  "source": {
    "api": "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search_by_date?tags=story,show_hn",
    "docs": "https://hn.algolia.com/api",
    "auth_required": false
  },
  "window": {
    "from": "2025-07-01",
    "to": "2026-07-01",
    "note": "UTC, [from, to). Ends about four weeks before the measurement date so scores have settled."
  },
  "overall": {
    "n": 41828,
    "points": {
      "min": 1,
      "median": 2,
      "p75": 3,
      "p90": 8,
      "p95": 22,
      "p99": 165,
      "max": 3346,
      "mean": 8.75
    },
    "pct_at_least": {
      "ge_2": 64.99,
      "ge_3": 37.25,
      "ge_5": 17.45,
      "ge_10": 8.39,
      "ge_20": 5.33,
      "ge_50": 3.15,
      "ge_100": 1.77,
      "ge_200": 0.77,
      "ge_500": 0.16
    },
    "comments": {
      "median": 0,
      "pct_zero_comments": 61.85,
      "pct_ge_1": 38.15,
      "pct_ge_10": 4.96
    }
  },
  "authors": {
    "distinct": 26821,
    "stories_per_author": 1.56,
    "most_by_one_author": 83,
    "one_submission_only": {
      "n": 19254,
      "points": {
        "min": 1,
        "median": 2,
        "p75": 3,
        "p90": 8,
        "p95": 22,
        "p99": 172.94,
        "max": 1481,
        "mean": 8.86
      },
      "pct_at_least": {
        "ge_2": 65.85,
        "ge_3": 37.87,
        "ge_5": 17.78,
        "ge_10": 8.54,
        "ge_20": 5.36,
        "ge_50": 3.22,
        "ge_100": 1.79,
        "ge_200": 0.78,
        "ge_500": 0.19
      },
      "comments": {
        "median": 0,
        "pct_zero_comments": 60.45,
        "pct_ge_1": 39.55,
        "pct_ge_10": 5.05
      }
    },
    "note": "Sub-sample of accounts that posted exactly one Show HN in the window — the closest thing to \"the outcome for someone launching once\"."
  },
  "ai_in_title": {
    "regex_strict": "/\\bA\\.?I\\.?\\b/i",
    "regex_broad": "/\\b(A\\.?I\\.?|AIs|LLMs?|GPTs?|agentic|agents?|chatbots?|copilots?|prompts?|RAG|transformers?|diffusion|embeddings?|MCP)\\b/i",
    "strict": {
      "with_ai": {
        "n": 8339,
        "points": {
          "min": 1,
          "median": 2,
          "p75": 3,
          "p90": 5,
          "p95": 9,
          "p99": 72,
          "max": 743,
          "mean": 4.79
        },
        "pct_at_least": {
          "ge_2": 59.98,
          "ge_3": 32.09,
          "ge_5": 13.08,
          "ge_10": 4.99,
          "ge_20": 2.63,
          "ge_50": 1.38,
          "ge_100": 0.72,
          "ge_200": 0.26,
          "ge_500": 0.02
        },
        "comments": {
          "median": 0,
          "pct_zero_comments": 61.94,
          "pct_ge_1": 38.06,
          "pct_ge_10": 3.06
        }
      },
      "without_ai": {
        "n": 33489,
        "points": {
          "min": 1,
          "median": 2,
          "p75": 4,
          "p90": 8,
          "p95": 28,
          "p99": 187,
          "max": 3346,
          "mean": 9.73
        },
        "pct_at_least": {
          "ge_2": 66.23,
          "ge_3": 38.53,
          "ge_5": 18.54,
          "ge_10": 9.24,
          "ge_20": 6,
          "ge_50": 3.59,
          "ge_100": 2.04,
          "ge_200": 0.9,
          "ge_500": 0.2
        },
        "comments": {
          "median": 0,
          "pct_zero_comments": 61.83,
          "pct_ge_1": 38.17,
          "pct_ge_10": 5.43
        }
      }
    },
    "broad": {
      "with_ai": {
        "n": 13257,
        "points": {
          "min": 1,
          "median": 2,
          "p75": 3,
          "p90": 7,
          "p95": 13,
          "p99": 107,
          "max": 915,
          "mean": 6.09
        },
        "pct_at_least": {
          "ge_2": 62.47,
          "ge_3": 35.19,
          "ge_5": 15.83,
          "ge_10": 6.77,
          "ge_20": 3.71,
          "ge_50": 2.04,
          "ge_100": 1.05,
          "ge_200": 0.39,
          "ge_500": 0.06
        },
        "comments": {
          "median": 0,
          "pct_zero_comments": 62.27,
          "pct_ge_1": 37.73,
          "pct_ge_10": 3.71
        }
      },
      "without_ai": {
        "n": 28571,
        "points": {
          "min": 1,
          "median": 2,
          "p75": 3,
          "p90": 8,
          "p95": 29,
          "p99": 192.3,
          "max": 3346,
          "mean": 9.98
        },
        "pct_at_least": {
          "ge_2": 66.15,
          "ge_3": 38.2,
          "ge_5": 18.2,
          "ge_10": 9.15,
          "ge_20": 6.08,
          "ge_50": 3.66,
          "ge_100": 2.11,
          "ge_200": 0.95,
          "ge_500": 0.21
        },
        "comments": {
          "median": 0,
          "pct_zero_comments": 61.65,
          "pct_ge_1": 38.35,
          "pct_ge_10": 5.54
        }
      }
    },
    "z_ge_100": -8.15,
    "months_where_ai_underperforms": "12/12",
    "composition_check": "The AI share of titles is not constant across the window, so the overall gap could in principle be a composition effect (AI-heavy months being bad months for everyone). It is not: the AI bucket is below the non-AI bucket in every month listed in by_month."
  },
  "by_weekday_utc": [
    {
      "weekday": "Sunday",
      "n": 4679,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_10": 9.28,
      "pct_ge_100": 2.14
    },
    {
      "weekday": "Monday",
      "n": 6478,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_10": 8.1,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.88
    },
    {
      "weekday": "Tuesday",
      "n": 7558,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_10": 8.83,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.63
    },
    {
      "weekday": "Wednesday",
      "n": 6787,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_10": 8.09,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.68
    },
    {
      "weekday": "Thursday",
      "n": 6519,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_10": 8.15,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.69
    },
    {
      "weekday": "Friday",
      "n": 5487,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_10": 8.09,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.62
    },
    {
      "weekday": "Saturday",
      "n": 4320,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_10": 8.36,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.94
    }
  ],
  "weekend_vs_weekday": {
    "weekend": {
      "n": 8999,
      "pct_ge_100": 2.04
    },
    "weekday": {
      "n": 32829,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.7
    },
    "z": 2.2
  },
  "front_page_tag": {
    "show_hn_stories_tagged_front_page": 1,
    "all_stories_tagged_front_page": 106,
    "note": "The HN Search API has a `front_page` tag, but it is not a historical record: over this whole twelve-month window it returns the counts above, which is a tiny fraction of the stories that were actually on the front page during that year. It reflects the index at write time, so it cannot be used to compute a historical front-page rate."
  },
  "by_hour_utc": [
    {
      "hour_utc": 0,
      "n": 1021,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 2.64
    },
    {
      "hour_utc": 1,
      "n": 925,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.08
    },
    {
      "hour_utc": 2,
      "n": 946,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 0.95
    },
    {
      "hour_utc": 3,
      "n": 850,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.06
    },
    {
      "hour_utc": 4,
      "n": 867,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.04
    },
    {
      "hour_utc": 5,
      "n": 902,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 2.11
    },
    {
      "hour_utc": 6,
      "n": 983,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.32
    },
    {
      "hour_utc": 7,
      "n": 1201,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 0.67
    },
    {
      "hour_utc": 8,
      "n": 1226,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 0.98
    },
    {
      "hour_utc": 9,
      "n": 1342,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.56
    },
    {
      "hour_utc": 10,
      "n": 1464,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.23
    },
    {
      "hour_utc": 11,
      "n": 1852,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 2.16
    },
    {
      "hour_utc": 12,
      "n": 2458,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.51
    },
    {
      "hour_utc": 13,
      "n": 3053,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.54
    },
    {
      "hour_utc": 14,
      "n": 3224,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 2.17
    },
    {
      "hour_utc": 15,
      "n": 3320,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.96
    },
    {
      "hour_utc": 16,
      "n": 3108,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 2.41
    },
    {
      "hour_utc": 17,
      "n": 2573,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 2.33
    },
    {
      "hour_utc": 18,
      "n": 2221,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 2.21
    },
    {
      "hour_utc": 19,
      "n": 2143,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.49
    },
    {
      "hour_utc": 20,
      "n": 1927,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.92
    },
    {
      "hour_utc": 21,
      "n": 1634,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 2.14
    },
    {
      "hour_utc": 22,
      "n": 1421,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.9
    },
    {
      "hour_utc": 23,
      "n": 1167,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.11
    }
  ],
  "by_month": [
    {
      "month": "2025-07",
      "n": 2567,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 2.38,
      "ai_title_share_pct": 19.21,
      "ai_pct_ge_100": 1.01,
      "non_ai_pct_ge_100": 2.7
    },
    {
      "month": "2025-08",
      "n": 2518,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 2.22,
      "ai_title_share_pct": 19.22,
      "ai_pct_ge_100": 1.24,
      "non_ai_pct_ge_100": 2.46
    },
    {
      "month": "2025-09",
      "n": 2208,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.63,
      "ai_title_share_pct": 18.8,
      "ai_pct_ge_100": 0,
      "non_ai_pct_ge_100": 2.01
    },
    {
      "month": "2025-10",
      "n": 2396,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 2.38,
      "ai_title_share_pct": 20.24,
      "ai_pct_ge_100": 1.03,
      "non_ai_pct_ge_100": 2.72
    },
    {
      "month": "2025-11",
      "n": 2616,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.64,
      "ai_title_share_pct": 18.58,
      "ai_pct_ge_100": 0,
      "non_ai_pct_ge_100": 2.02
    },
    {
      "month": "2025-12",
      "n": 3523,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.53,
      "ai_title_share_pct": 17.26,
      "ai_pct_ge_100": 0.66,
      "non_ai_pct_ge_100": 1.72
    },
    {
      "month": "2026-01",
      "n": 4764,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.64,
      "ai_title_share_pct": 17.76,
      "ai_pct_ge_100": 0.95,
      "non_ai_pct_ge_100": 1.79
    },
    {
      "month": "2026-02",
      "n": 6222,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.3,
      "ai_title_share_pct": 24.04,
      "ai_pct_ge_100": 0.6,
      "non_ai_pct_ge_100": 1.52
    },
    {
      "month": "2026-03",
      "n": 5446,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.32,
      "ai_title_share_pct": 23.82,
      "ai_pct_ge_100": 0.62,
      "non_ai_pct_ge_100": 1.54
    },
    {
      "month": "2026-04",
      "n": 3433,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 2.45,
      "ai_title_share_pct": 17.8,
      "ai_pct_ge_100": 1.15,
      "non_ai_pct_ge_100": 2.73
    },
    {
      "month": "2026-05",
      "n": 2654,
      "median_points": 2,
      "pct_ge_100": 2.15,
      "ai_title_share_pct": 17.14,
      "ai_pct_ge_100": 0.88,
      "non_ai_pct_ge_100": 2.41
    },
    {
      "month": "2026-06",
      "n": 3481,
      "median_points": 3,
      "pct_ge_100": 1.81,
      "ai_title_share_pct": 19.05,
      "ai_pct_ge_100": 0.6,
      "non_ai_pct_ge_100": 2.09
    }
  ],
  "histogram": [
    {
      "from": 1,
      "to": 1,
      "n": 14646,
      "pct": 35.01
    },
    {
      "from": 2,
      "to": 2,
      "n": 11602,
      "pct": 27.74
    },
    {
      "from": 3,
      "to": 4,
      "n": 8281,
      "pct": 19.8
    },
    {
      "from": 5,
      "to": 9,
      "n": 3788,
      "pct": 9.06
    },
    {
      "from": 10,
      "to": 19,
      "n": 1281,
      "pct": 3.06
    },
    {
      "from": 20,
      "to": 49,
      "n": 914,
      "pct": 2.19
    },
    {
      "from": 50,
      "to": 99,
      "n": 574,
      "pct": 1.37
    },
    {
      "from": 100,
      "to": 199,
      "n": 419,
      "pct": 1
    },
    {
      "from": 200,
      "to": 499,
      "n": 254,
      "pct": 0.61
    },
    {
      "from": 500,
      "to": null,
      "n": 69,
      "pct": 0.16
    }
  ],
  "top_25": [
    {
      "id": "46205632",
      "title": "Show HN: Gemini Pro 3 imagines the HN front page 10 years from now",
      "points": 3346,
      "num_comments": 965,
      "created_at": "2025-12-09T15:00:38Z",
      "host": "dosaygo-studio.github.io"
    },
    {
      "id": "46339600",
      "title": "Show HN: Jmail – Google Suite for Epstein files",
      "points": 1557,
      "num_comments": 363,
      "created_at": "2025-12-20T21:00:05Z",
      "host": "jmail.world"
    },
    {
      "id": "48490024",
      "title": "Show HN: Homebrew 6.0.0",
      "points": 1481,
      "num_comments": 363,
      "created_at": "2026-06-11T13:24:29Z",
      "host": "brew.sh"
    },
    {
      "id": "46721802",
      "title": "Show HN: isometric.nyc – giant isometric pixel art map of NYC",
      "points": 1325,
      "num_comments": 241,
      "created_at": "2026-01-22T16:52:35Z",
      "host": "cannoneyed.com"
    },
    {
      "id": "45900425",
      "title": "Show HN: I built a synth for my daughter",
      "points": 1278,
      "num_comments": 209,
      "created_at": "2025-11-12T14:12:13Z",
      "host": "bitsnpieces.dev"
    },
    {
      "id": "45231378",
      "title": "Show HN: A store that generates products from anything you type in search",
      "points": 1184,
      "num_comments": 333,
      "created_at": "2025-09-13T12:02:11Z",
      "host": "anycrap.shop"
    },
    {
      "id": "48445554",
      "title": "Show HN: Performative-UI – A react component library of design tropes",
      "points": 1181,
      "num_comments": 213,
      "created_at": "2026-06-08T14:05:16Z",
      "host": "vorpus.github.io"
    },
    {
      "id": "44787902",
      "title": "Show HN: I spent 6 years building a ridiculous wooden pixel display",
      "points": 1145,
      "num_comments": 144,
      "created_at": "2025-08-04T16:16:21Z",
      "host": "benholmen.com"
    },
    {
      "id": "45181535",
      "title": "Show HN: Term.everything – Run any GUI app in the terminal",
      "points": 1094,
      "num_comments": 144,
      "created_at": "2025-09-09T13:16:30Z",
      "host": "github.com"
    },
    {
      "id": "45154609",
      "title": "Show HN: I recreated Windows XP as my portfolio",
      "points": 1032,
      "num_comments": 323,
      "created_at": "2025-09-07T01:44:19Z",
      "host": "mitchivin.com"
    },
    {
      "id": "44664873",
      "title": "Show HN: Tinder but it's only pictures of my wife and I can only swipe right",
      "points": 1030,
      "num_comments": 263,
      "created_at": "2025-07-23T22:53:27Z",
      "host": "trytender.app"
    },
    {
      "id": "44807868",
      "title": "Show HN: Kitten TTS – 25MB CPU-Only, Open-Source TTS Model",
      "points": 1003,
      "num_comments": 361,
      "created_at": "2025-08-06T05:04:36Z",
      "host": "github.com"
    },
    {
      "id": "47640728",
      "title": "Show HN: A game where you build a GPU",
      "points": 964,
      "num_comments": 187,
      "created_at": "2026-04-04T16:45:54Z",
      "host": "jaso1024.com"
    },
    {
      "id": "44522683",
      "title": "Show HN: Ten years of running every day, visualized",
      "points": 958,
      "num_comments": 495,
      "created_at": "2025-07-10T16:21:13Z",
      "host": "nodaysoff.run"
    },
    {
      "id": "44719222",
      "title": "Show HN: Draw a fish and watch it swim with the others",
      "points": 935,
      "num_comments": 234,
      "created_at": "2025-07-29T04:57:22Z",
      "host": "drawafish.com"
    },
    {
      "id": "47655408",
      "title": "Show HN: I built a tiny LLM to demystify how language models work",
      "points": 915,
      "num_comments": 134,
      "created_at": "2026-04-06T00:20:12Z",
      "host": "github.com"
    },
    {
      "id": "44962066",
      "title": "Show HN: I was curious about spherical helix, ended up making this visualization",
      "points": 865,
      "num_comments": 132,
      "created_at": "2025-08-20T14:02:47Z",
      "host": "visualrambling.space"
    },
    {
      "id": "44716106",
      "title": "Show HN: Use Their ID – Use your local UK MP’s ID for the Online Safety Act",
      "points": 862,
      "num_comments": 281,
      "created_at": "2025-07-28T21:49:10Z",
      "host": "use-their-id.com"
    },
    {
      "id": "48673671",
      "title": "Show HN: I made Google Trends for Hacker News by indexing 18 years of comments",
      "points": 822,
      "num_comments": 156,
      "created_at": "2026-06-25T14:08:55Z",
      "host": "hackernewstrends.com"
    },
    {
      "id": "45777810",
      "title": "Show HN: Strange Attractors",
      "points": 804,
      "num_comments": 78,
      "created_at": "2025-10-31T23:23:59Z",
      "host": "blog.shashanktomar.com"
    },
    {
      "id": "44846281",
      "title": "Show HN: The current sky at your approximate location, as a CSS gradient",
      "points": 788,
      "num_comments": 160,
      "created_at": "2025-08-09T13:25:16Z",
      "host": "sky.dlazaro.ca"
    },
    {
      "id": "47673360",
      "title": "Show HN: Brutalist Concrete Laptop Stand (2024)",
      "points": 786,
      "num_comments": 240,
      "created_at": "2026-04-07T11:07:44Z",
      "host": "sam-burns.com"
    },
    {
      "id": "47625952",
      "title": "Show HN: I built a frontpage for personal blogs",
      "points": 783,
      "num_comments": 195,
      "created_at": "2026-04-03T12:33:45Z",
      "host": "text.blogosphere.app"
    },
    {
      "id": "46093473",
      "title": "Show HN: Boing",
      "points": 782,
      "num_comments": 147,
      "created_at": "2025-11-30T03:46:35Z",
      "host": "boing.greg.technology"
    },
    {
      "id": "45438346",
      "title": "Show HN: Autism Simulator",
      "points": 779,
      "num_comments": 857,
      "created_at": "2025-10-01T14:48:31Z",
      "host": "autism-simulator.vercel.app"
    }
  ],
  "caveats": [
    "The HN Search API records points and comment counts. It has a `front_page` tag, but that tag is a snapshot of the index, not history — see front_page_tag for what it actually returns over this window. No historical front-page rate can be computed from this API, so nothing here claims to measure one.",
    "These are stories, not people: see authors.distinct. The one-submission-only sub-sample is reported alongside so the headline can be checked against a de-duplicated population.",
    "The \"AI in title\" test is case-insensitive, so a lowercase \".ai\" domain in a title counts as saying AI. It is an association, not a cause: what gets titled \"AI\" is not a random sample of projects.",
    "Points are read once, at measurement time. A story keeps accumulating votes for a while after posting, which is why the window ends four weeks before the measurement date.",
    "Every HN story starts at 1 point (the submitter's own vote), so \"1 point\" is the floor, not a zero.",
    "Weekday and hour are UTC. Hacker News traffic follows US hours, so a UTC weekday bucket straddles two US days at the edges.",
    "Stories deleted or moderated away between posting and measurement are absent from the index and therefore absent here.",
    "The \"AI in title\" split is a title-text test, not a judgement about what the project is. A project about AI whose title never says so lands in the \"without\" bucket."
  ]
}