If it were to be sold, how much would HN cost?

What is the value of Wikipedia? Hard to value public goods, because the value of HN comes from its mods. I suppose if one must, start at whatever gains YC has seen on its investments during HN's lifetime, with some discount for the fact that ZIRP is unlikely to occur again and the future will not be like the past wrt the startup ecosystem. There is no guarantee a new owner would cultivate the same forum participants who might consider being a founder or employee of a YC portfolio company. The product is YC portfolio company stock; HN is machine to leverage curious, driven people as fuel for VC gains, with the consumer excess being brain tickles for the rest of us.

https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/pulling-back-the-curtain-...

https://www.marketsentiment.co/p/the-yc-report

If it were to be sold, how much would HN cost?

I think it would have to include YC itself so in the billions, or if one counts the portfolio then theoretically hundreds of billions but only YC's financial people could really answer that and even then the market would have to decide. HN is just a link aggregator and link discussion site under YC.

Atleast around 1B$, because it is a prime discussion place for tinkerers. It makes sense to be valued at around 2 cents worth compared to what twitter was

$0.02