> Is that harder to do these days, or has the HN news appetite shifted?

The popular keywords for some time have been AI, Trump, Russia, Ukraine.

As these are hot topics, the "Hacker" part of HN has taken a noticeable backseat. There are still interesting submissions but they don't reach the front page that often.

For example, there's a huge thread on this very post about the source site because of its supposed origins.