Nope, my retort is that people do not care. On HN, we (usually) seek out the best information and data by using rationality and logic and having a high standar

Nope, my retort is that people do not care. On HN, we (usually) seek out the best information and data by using rationality and logic and having a high standard for what constitutes intellectual discussion. We hold subject matter experts in high regard and we seek to sidestep fallacies and gratuitous displays of emotion. Most people are not this way. Witness the rise of 24/7 cable news that blathers endlessly about whatever is the big story of the minute, or conservative talk radio, designed to whip people into an emotional frenzy. Or Twitter! I'm pretty sure that if Mish was restricted to 140 characters, he'd be a lot less insightful. The medium is changing, but human nature hasn't changed. And the result of making everyone a content producer is that there are many orders of magnitude of content out there, which means you have to get attention by being intensely targeted (HN), or by pure volume (Demand Media). My point is that human nature seems to be driving more people to the latter.