Of the options available, I thought this was the most reasonable. The markup available doesn't make it particularly easy to do lists on HN. It's either a codeblock to get the list items close, or one line per paragraph that takes up lots of vertical room.

Please don't blame the commenter. Criticise the people behind HN for introducing this user hostile design and refusing to fix it for many years.

You can get an extension/userstyle for your browser so that code blocks will not bother you anymore.

It's not 'user hostile', at worst it is 'device hostile' and HN has plenty of mobile adapted clones out there.

For instance:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.github.hidr...

And plenty of others.

The 'people behind HN' are fewer in number than you would likely guess and are working hard to keep the community on the rails, on top of being responsible for the development. It is not as though they are drowning in capacity.

Don't bring a knife to a gunfight. If you want to object to websites that allow codeblocks don't visit those websites, and if you do bring inferior devices to read with then don't complain.

HN is one of the most readable websites out there as of today and the degree of bitching about details such as these is infuriating, just look at the ad plastered animated bs you see elsewhere and then realize how trivial this particular gripe is.

Rendering is mostly a client side affair, you have all the control you need to make it look any way you want.