I think much of it has to do with that they were originally written for books, magazines with thorough editorial practices and a reputation to preserve. 'Richa

I think much of it has to do with that they were originally written for books, magazines with thorough editorial practices and a reputation to preserve. 'Richard Feynman and The Connection Machine'[1] another HN favorite comes to my mind. It was originally written for Physics Today magazine. I don't think it's limited to only long form content, Even today printed news papers which have been in existence for >=~100 years does have better quality of writing than online content(even from the same news media) due to some resemblance of their editorial practices. But all those printed newspapers are on the verge of bankruptcy or already dead. Their online counterpart is now only concerned with how many articles can be published/hour, There's not even proof reading because of this as they have to please Google, Facebook, Apple for those screen time. I've noticed when I give interviews to online news the writer often has to work with their web-admin to fix errors in my statements after publishing(when it's different from what I actually said)and often it takes several hours if it even happens. Where as in printed news papers had the habit of error correction in the next issue. [1] https://longnow.org/essays/richard-feynman-connection-machine/ https://longnow.org/essays/richard-feynman-connection-machin...