I have plenty of semi-technical friends that do this. Some of them only look at the links (e.g. via social media bots), and aren't even aware that HN has commen

I have plenty of semi-technical friends that do this. Some of them only look at the links (e.g. via social media bots), and aren't even aware that HN has comments. They're the kind of people who consider themselves "tech enthusiasts", they can install a nifty tool via pip if the instructions are clear enough, maybe even figure out what's wrong if there's an error, but they're definitely not programmers by any means. Quite a few of them speak "tech English"; they can figure out a settings window or a signup form, they know enough tech vocabulary and basic grammar to mostly understand manuals, maybe with some help here or there, and can barely string an English sentence together. Ask them to define "lettuce" or "salmon" and they're lost.