I think people are complaining because xkcd is a high-quality site that everyone knows about (and likely reads already). In other words, just about every comic on the site could be submitted here, but most of us refrain from doing that.

Then again, the same thing could be said for PG's essays, but I guess in that case, there's always some kind of discussion to go along with them, whereas there's not much to say about a comic.

xkcd is updated 3 times a week on schedule. That there is a new one is not news. (This one is at least sort of about hacking.)

PG posts maybe 2 essays in a month. It is news when a new essay is posted. That goes for many bloggers who only update periodically.

And, sadly, they don't come every day.

I find that many blogs in my newsreader I still read mostly through YC news submissions. I don't read all the blogs in my reader on a regular basis, and somehow I count on YC news to notify me if something especially interesting appears in them.

I wonder if some of the people complaining about notable items appearing on the front page of Reddit are some of the same people complaining about non-notable items appearing on obscure pages within Wikipedia.

so is techcrunch but that doesnt stop anyone