Definitely not OK, especially for a tech blog.
I don't see how they add any substance to the discussion. We all got the same pop-up, we all find it annoying. Voting it up to the top of every HN discussion is not likely to change it. Who even knows if the author will ever see this thread.
The topic of this post is whether Google can listen to, and presumably record, our conversations with little to no warning. To me that seems more worth a discussion than yet another pop-up email form.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238739
> A reader emailed to complain about how this and other HN discussions often become derailed by off-topic carping about blog design. I agree completely. Could there be a more classic form of bikeshedding? It would seem parodic if it weren't sadly real. This has become more of a thing on HN lately. It needs to become less of a thing.
> I don't mean to pick on you personally, or just on this one comment. (Your second sentence alone, by the way, would have been a helpful contribution.) The problem is the tedious stampedes such comments spawn.
I agree. I used to make those comments. I've tried to cut it down.
I chose to comment because the author of the linked post and the HN submitter are the same person; my reaction came directly from this association. All the same, the remark doesn't belong on HN.