It was created at a time when it wasn’t quite as much of a firehose: https://web.archive.org/web/20070625191604/https://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments https:

It was created at a time when it wasn’t quite as much of a firehose: https://web.archive.org/web/20070625191604/https://news.ycombinator.com/newcomments https://web.archive.org/web/20070625191604/https://news.ycom... When there are several minutes between every comment, you can see how it’s useful to get directed to threads with ongoing activity.