I think for communities like HN, the real content actually is the comments-- or rephrased, HN uniquely stands out amongst other news aggregators because of its community. You could say the community sentiment should be reflected through the content submitted, but I just don’t believe that’s true.

However, I don’t think everything on earth needs comments. I honestly never understood the point of blog posts having comments, but I’ve never run a successful blog that anyone looks at either so maybe I don’t get it.