> 2. HNers are getting past the paywall (illegally)
It's not illegal to bypass a paywall by Googling the article. They literally programmed the paywall to work that way. It's how I read (and upvoted) the article.
If Googling it doesn't let you get past the paywall, try incognito.
Given the number of WSJ articles I've seen recently, I am getting suspicious that one of the following is happening:
1. A lot of HNers upvoting articles without reading them
2. HNers are getting past the paywall (illegally)
3. The WSJ staff is upvoting their own articles to get a page view boost (and thus a few more ad dollars)
Of course, there could just be more people on HN that pay for the WSJ than I thought.