The HN readership has changed massively in that timeframe, from the earlier Hackers and Painters / libertarian ideology to a much more socialist outlook. I could speculate about the reasons for this, but my theories would probably attract even more downvotes than just pointing out the obvious change in tone will.
I'm interested in hearing your reasons, tbqh.
One trend that's bigger than tech is that educated professional class has massively consolidated into the liberal column in the wake of Trump, it used to be more like 66/33 lean liberal.
So that's going to impact any professional class community, whether it's tech or not.
I'm not sure this is true. I consider this website very much to the right of most web fora.
I was talking about the broader professional population, there's polling on this and they've (we've) really consolidated left as the right wing has become more and more about culture war.
The hacker crowd has always had a heavy socialist or even communist component - sharing and coöperative work is a big part of the FLOSS community, after all!
I'd say HN is slowly catching up with traditional SV startup culture dying, and seeing more non-VC-funded people flowing in as sites like Reddit enshittify. Those people identify more as tech workers than as early startup employees who aren't a billionaire yet.
Combine that with recent economic and political developments, and it isn't exactly surprising that a growing part of HN isn't a big fan of the über-wealthy tech elite trying to make their life worse.