It worked quite well for me!
The trick though is to gravitate towards places where there is a community and where you end up talking to a few of the same people. HN's probably not going to be it, an IRC channel, Discord, forum, etc, where you keep talking to the same dozen regulars is much better.
I had so many good times doing this when I was younger, on IRC and Forums back in the late 90s, early 00s. I haven't had much luck since then though unfortunately.
Any advice for finding the smaller communities? I've been trying to join larger more public communities to make the initial connections with people but mostly I find that they are either ghost towns with thousands of people but no one is active, or they are so active it's just noise that no one is really keeping up with
Find a really niche subject, project or activity.