If I know a competitor wrote it, I don't read it as negative. To me, it's a welcome courtesy, but as you say, I couldn't assume it if absent; so I'd probably paint a negative picture of S3 with the same albeit unprefaced sentence.
(Plus, I'm always pleased to see someone not call it a 'disclaimer'!)
Disclosure of Interest should be a common practice across all Industry and web discussions. It provides a lot of additional perspective, most of the places do not adhere to this.
Fortunately HN has kept the culture of disclosure intact.