[jerf]

I would submit there's a significant difference between comment sites on the original site, and secondary comment sites like Slashdot, Reddit, and HN. The article is clearly about the former. I am not personally aware of a site that at scale (i.e., not a blog with a couple hundred commenters, tops) is worth reading the comments.

Sure, you can write complaints about Slashdot, Reddit, and HN (see siblings of this post competing to see who can slag on them the hardest), but at least there's a chance of some semblance of discussion. That is not a chance that big sites have.