A game I had helped develop made #1 a few weeks back. I wanted to comment on it and say thanks but ran into the same error message. Kind of strange that you have to request permission to comment, even if you have an account.
There's a podcast episode maybe a year ago with Erik Torenberg (co-founder) where he discusses in more detail. He also talks about focusing the communication by splitting PH into verticals for games, books, etc. as it is now, but at the time it hadn't happened yet.
For instance the person I got mine from is a mid-career technical founder in the midwest who's hard working but not rich or well known. Personally I am not yet a successful founder and have minimal connections in the Bay Area. I attributed getting it to being at the right place at the right time.