> I've seen it on HN also. Someone creates a thing, and then people pour out of the woodwork to lump horrible criticism.
I said this a while ago as well[1], but there's a strong bias towards people who are unhappy with $something (for any value of $something). If you think everything is just great then you don't actually all that much to say beyond "hey, looks great!" Sometimes you can expand that to a paragraph of two about what you like, but overall it's hard to write a substantive comment. But if you're not happy with something then it's much easier to write a paragraph or two about what you're unhappy with.
This isn't actually true, though. Existence proof: Tim Rogers. The man can write a 6 hour video essay about how much he loves a game and not even be halfway done. The truth is, we all have the ability - though most of us don't exercise it for whatever reason.
The real problem is that people like quick negative comments more than quick positive ones.
I'll add that writing a substantive comment opens you to comments from the mob that disagrees and you can get sucked in defending your POV or simply downvoted because the mob smelled blood.
I said this a while ago as well[1], but there's a strong bias towards people who are unhappy with $something (for any value of $something). If you think everything is just great then you don't actually all that much to say beyond "hey, looks great!" Sometimes you can expand that to a paragraph of two about what you like, but overall it's hard to write a substantive comment. But if you're not happy with something then it's much easier to write a paragraph or two about what you're unhappy with.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31454200