Didn't Ars get bought by same corporate parent (Conde Naste) as Wired? While Ars hasn't sunk quite as quickly, its still not nearly as good as it was pre-acquisition for me.
It's popularity stems from its early significance; Ars is an old, old website by standards of peers like The Verge and it did used to have much more frequent high quality technical writing. Since Conde acquisition it's definitely veered more mainstream (exactly like Wired did too) IMO. I certainly don't think the original Ars crowd imagined they'd one day be a Conde Naste "brand".
arstechnica states that their parent is Wired. I suspected that their success on HN is mainly for historical reasons. It looks like even HN can fall behind the times a bit...
"Acquired in 2008 by Advance, the parent company of Condé Nast, Ars Technica has offices in Boston, New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. Today, Ars Technica operates as Condé Nast's only 100% digitally native editorial publication."
It's popularity stems from its early significance; Ars is an old, old website by standards of peers like The Verge and it did used to have much more frequent high quality technical writing. Since Conde acquisition it's definitely veered more mainstream (exactly like Wired did too) IMO. I certainly don't think the original Ars crowd imagined they'd one day be a Conde Naste "brand".
> https://www.condenast.com/brands/ars-technica
> https://www.condenast.com/brands/wired
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