> Slowly over time I noticed that I begun spending more time in the comment sections, and less time opening links. To cut a short boring story shorter, that trend continued into 2017. I am now at the stage where I very rarely open the links, I simply open the comments and am able to deduce the gist of the link through the unfolding arguments.
Even after your comment, I do not make that connection. If that was the intent, it fails...e.g, Why not duplicate the site faithfully and just eliminate the comment links?
It succeeds in being 'quiet' (less noisy) in design.
I'm not sure you know what "literally" and "exactly" means, after that comment. Stop using those words just because you disagree vehemently. Here's the "literal" version you haven't imagined:
Your comment reminds me why "No Feigned Surprise" is a virtue (https://www.recurse.com/manual#no-feigned-surprise). Yes, it is entirely possible to miss the tiny link at the bottom that says "What is this?" and even then still possible to skim or dismiss it thereafter.
I was asking genuinely because I could not tell whether the person I was replying to was being sarcastic about the idea of not having comments or if they just didn't make the connection between "quiet" and "no comments".
http://tomspeak.co.uk/posts/quiet-hacker-news
The point appears to be not to have the comments.