On the other hand, we rarely see HN threads about contractors in which corporations are argued to be a panacea for problems faced by busy well paid contract developers, and anybody suggesting any potential downsides of contractors moving onto payroll is assumed to be a dupe of propaganda pushed by Big Tim Ferriss.

(We can take that comparison further: people on HN sometimes do suggest that Uber drivers might be better off if they could only be hired as salaried employees but almost never say that about highly paid freelance developers. It's pretty similar when we're looking at the respective cost/benefit of collective bargaining arrangements for local bus drivers vs highly skilled developers earning two orders of magnitude more than bus drivers in an job market that offers practically unrivalled opportunities for people with their skillset.)