It depends on how you use this site. You might've noticed how the top users tend to post articles and spark interesting discussions while new users tend to post news. As a startup founder, you are more interested in analytical articles rather than news. For news, you might be better off subscribing to other sites for a larger scope (i.e. TechCrunch, Mashable, GigaOm, and KillerStartups). There is no shortage of news.
Good analytical articles, however, require that users swipe through their rss feeds, find an interesting piece, and post it here. The value of yc.news, in my opinion, is in the articles that other startup founders find interesting. And that alone makes this place worth your time.
YC is much more useful to bring up things that you might not have thought of, or to hepl you understand the larger issues, rather then the minutiae of what's going on in 2.0 News.
One of the uses I've found is going back through the articles I've upvotted, and used that as a source of links to send to the team, so we're all on the same page about things, such as UI elements and the like..
While I get a lot out of the site individually, beign able to point to a study, or other people who have written about some of the issues is a persuasive tool, and one that helps to ensure that we have a better product all around.
And why is it good to know about trends and competitors?
I for one successfully raised startups, being very very focussed and not caring about competitors at all. Until know, people often ask me how my products compare to the main competitors and all I can say is: I dont know. I never looked at the other products.
"Know your enemy and know yourself, find naught in fear for 100 battles. Know yourself but not your enemy, find level of loss and victory. Know thy enemy but not yourself, wallow in defeat every time." - Sun Tzu, The Art of War
I keep a very close eye on my competitors. I follow their rss feeds, coverage on blogs, and features that make them better than us. I am surprised this is even up for a debate.
