That's because a large discussion broke out underneath a comment that may not have been the most high quality?

A few people said on the last article that the URL was blocked, perhaps something to do with "advertising" being in the URL. Also, no conspiracy on the disappearing comments, an ad industry person showed up in defence and got immediately flamed, which is why the post dropped pages. Cheers.

Got it- thanks. It really fell several pages but things do when the discussions become less constructive.

HN mods will collapse comment threads if they devolve into a flame war or low-quality discussion. That's what happened here.