> Does a comment on this article truly need to be substantive?
Yes. Just because an article is lame doesn't mean the thread should be.
(By the way, please don't go on about downvoting in HN comments—that's so invariably lame that it has not one but two guidelines against it. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Appropriately enough, they're at the bottom.)
Now they're defending that course of action while pretending to be concerned about it. I think this can accurately be described as "weaseling". I think it's taking place because people are starting to notice what happens to these articles, which may soon prove dire to the business they've built on these practices.
In other words: "Watch the weasels dance: the jig is almost up.", go read a writing style guide and they'll tell you to cut unnecessary verbiage.