I think it's ridiculous to call SN a walled garden. Discord is walled garden. Facebook is a walled garden. On those sites, discussions and other content are private until you have an account. On Discord especially, content is not indexed by search engine. You can read Stacker News with no account. You can find SN posts via search engine. You can see into the SN garden without an account. If anything it's a fenced garden, and that's a stretch. SN is extremely open.
I think it's ridiculous to call SN a walled garden. Discord is walled garden. Facebook is a walled garden. On those sites, discussions and other content are private until you have an account. On Discord especially, content is not indexed by search engine. You can read Stacker News with no account. You can find SN posts via search engine. You can see into the SN garden without an account. If anything it's a fenced garden, and that's a stretch. SN is extremely open.