"HN is this news aggregator. If someone posts a link to a story about the mars rover, or a breakthrough in fusion reactors, or anything like that, you can be sure to read a comment from someone on the inside with additional insight, like 'yup, I've been on that team and this is what really happened ...'"
The comments are the beauty of HN (most of the time). That's why I keep coming back. Thanks HN!
"visual studio code 1.9" getting the most time (in the front page), upvotes and comments for the day is a prove of this happening.
I see that your account is roughly 4 months old. From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html:
"If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a common semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills"
I've been on HN for almost 6 years, and I don't think it's gotten quantifiably worse. The tone has changed, but it's hard to say much beyond that. In fact, the moderation has gotten much better; and 'pg not commenting anymore has (in my very subjective opinion) improved things (any of his comments would dominate a thread's discussion).