Yes, except that users just don't do it. It's a tragedy of the commons: sifting through the story stream to find the interesting ones is not, itself, interesting enough. The reason people come to HN (to read interesting things) is a reason not to do that.
Our current idea for the solution is twofold: create a new review mechanism for stories (not to replace /newest but to live alongside it), and reward users with karma for participating. But we're a fair way away from having anything worth rolling out.
That's funny. By reflex, I visit the new page most times after I visit the main page. And I venture to guess that on many days I visit HN more than the average user here. But, yeah, when N gets big enough, what any one person does doesn't set the culture of the whole community.
Our current idea for the solution is twofold: create a new review mechanism for stories (not to replace /newest but to live alongside it), and reward users with karma for participating. But we're a fair way away from having anything worth rolling out.