Comments are what make HN/Reddit (on certain subreddits) so valuable. It provides a means for well-educated communities to discuss topics freely and casually, a

Comments are what make HN/Reddit (on certain subreddits) so valuable. It provides a means for well-educated communities to discuss topics freely and casually, and to aggregate a number of diverse opinions that would be impossible/orders of magnitude slower and more limited prior to the Internet. And the format is much more appealing than IRC channels or typical forums. The links are only half of the equation (perhaps less, to me).