Yup. When I discovered HN about 3 years ago, I read most of the posts and maybe some comments.

Now, it's opposite. I read a lot of comments and usually don't read the links themselves. From my experience, the value of the links decreases after some time as things inevitably start repeating. Not the same links, but the same ideas, concepts (not always, of course).

I view HN as a forum, where the title of the link is the topic for a thread.