And maybe it is the cynical contrarian in me, but I think the "real world" aspect of Product Hunt it what turned me off of the site before these issues even came to the forefront. It always seemed like an echo chamber were everyone was putting up a facade. Users seemed more concerned with the people behind products and networking with them than actually offering opinions of what was posted.

I find the more internet-like communities more natural. Sure, the top comment on a Show HN is often a critique. However I find that more interesting than the usual "Wow, another great product from John Developer. Signing up now." or the "Wow, great product. Here is why you should use the competing product that I work on." that you usually see on Product Hunt.

I hadn't thought of it this way before.

Sure, it's slightly depressing that the top comment on a HN thread always seems to always be a takedown (especially when the post cites data and the comment is 'From my experience..') but the alternative is pretty terrible.

I'm a paying customer of about a dozen SaaS services. I'm also working on my own service. I'd use this before ProductHunt if and only if, it had better products on the homepage.

Basically, if the curation is good, I'll be there looking for improvements to my "stack".

I'd be inclined to constantly reevaluate - if not outright resist - this impulse if I were you, lest you inadvertently allow huge opportunities to pass you by because they didn't have the cachet to signal "capital and connections".

This is a very good (and interesting) point. I'm looking forward to seeing the differences in the quality and type of content between open/product hunt.

I think you're right.

I guess the opposite of a curated list is a list that can be spammed by anyone.

That's pretty much it. Product Hunt is not a very good idea but it sort of works because there's some juice behind it. This open thing obviously won't go anywhere because it's doing pretty much the opposite of what goes into successful offerings.