The biggest factor is randomness, which can't be understood in that way. People frequently imagine stories about why HN is "doing" this or that, but that's a category error, since HN is a statistical cloud. Randomness plus cognitive bias equals narrative, etc.
You'll notice that your GP comment is now upvoted while this one is downvoted. That's common, because unfairly downvoted comments frequently get corrective upvotes from users who come along and see that the comment is fine: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... Meanwhile, complaints like this one break the site guidelines (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html at the bottom!) and usually end up being false as well.
This comment breaks the site guideline against going on about downvotes, by the way—in spirit if not in letter. Please don't post like this; it's off topic and boring.
This is the best place to discuss about those same topics, BTW, even when from my perspective, some of them look to have a little more bias than others.
You'll notice that your GP comment is now upvoted while this one is downvoted. That's common, because unfairly downvoted comments frequently get corrective upvotes from users who come along and see that the comment is fine: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... Meanwhile, complaints like this one break the site guidelines (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html at the bottom!) and usually end up being false as well.