[xnorswap]

I do this, but it's a dangerous trap to assume that the commenters are more reliable or a better authority than the articles themselves.

The articles have a filter that someone has gone to the "effort" of writing up an article, and it takes a lot of upvotes to get to the front page. The commentary has no such filter.

It's very easy to shoot down ideas on HN in the comments and get rewarded for it, especially if it's to dismiss a product with alternatives. Not just the now notorious dropbox comment, but I'm often seeing comments here suggesting alternatives that if you're in the know you'll realise just don't solve the problems in a pain free way.

[stevenicr]

I agree with your statements here, and certainly what I do mostly is not what I do all the time. Especially if it was like health info I'd dig deeper for example. I think part of my method is also what threads I click or don't click - so the experience is going to vary with that selection biases as well.

when people mention mac only (big thanks to those who do this!) - I tend to just believe and move on.

with some projects I open tabs for the article and all the alternatives people mention bookmark to dig into later.

So my methods are not always this or that - but as a general 'way of HN' for me, these methods are what makes HN a great time saver in general, but not always.