> I don't want to turn this into a personal attack or an overly snarky comment

That's a fine intention, but then you shouldn't lead with "Jesus this is some dumb shit" or end with "it's really something to try and [...] fail." Doing it that way breaks the site guidelines. Would you mind reviewing them? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Note that the leading guideline in the "comments" section is Be kind.