There are comments that are superior to the article they're responding to. There are books that are better off not being read at all. Forums also serve a few purposes that raw reading material cannot.
I think moralizing the activity brings with it the peril that you may start feeling good about consuming information the "right" way, and feel bad about consuming it the "wrong" way, while what you should really care about is the information itself. How you get it doesn't really matter.
Granted, I don't see anything particularly virtuous or advantageous about cooking your own food, either, so perhaps we're at an impasse...
But baring that, restaurant food is generally too salty and fatty and light on fresh vegetables to be healthy to rely on for most meals. There are exceptions, but those restaurants tend to be drastically more expensive.
But there are alternatives to cooking and going to restaurants that are often frowned upon, yet nonetheless allow you to get everything you need and are already drastically cheaper in many cases:
- canned food;
- frozen food;
- meal replacements;
- supplements.
Mostly no, but sometimes yes. I've not found a more thought provoking place of discourse than HN, and have been referred to a number of good books on here.
Problem is that information snacks like news and forums are the intellectual equivalent of vending machine junk food. We know it's better for us to cook our own food but we get lazy. Same with forum posts. We feel like we're actually doing something when we're not.