The main upside though is not feeling the urge to compete with other people which makes it different from the likes of Facebook/Instagram.

I suspect most people using those other social media sites don't feel such an urge. If anything, some people use it as their primary means of socializing, communicating and consuming media, which is unhealthy, but they do so because the medium is convenient, not because it drives them in some relentless pursuit of "likes."

It still creates the internet karma points thing, visible in the top corner.

And there is "but there are people WRONG on the internet!" effect, which means demonstrating domain knowledge and winning arguments drive their interest -- something that seems strikingly more common with knowledge workers (e.g. lawyers, programmers, professors), than, say, construction workers. People wanna feel smart, esp. in their areas of proficiency and dominance.

I'm sure someone will post the relevant XKCD any minute now...

I disagree on the basis that a hacker news account has no intrinsic ties with a personal identity.

It also has no notion of relationships between users.