It's not useless, it's a nice, basic tool that's clearly a hit with users.

But it can never be that simple, can it? We got to grow! monetize! have another fundraising round! justify it all with increasingly complex features of progressively marginal utility that further dilute the core funcionality that made it so popular in the first place.

Imagine if HN were to succumb to this disease, it would be a travesty.