I don't think this is any secret, and it's why I support outright banning these types of sites from HN submissions. They never have anything remotely unique or insightful, it's just dog piling on the controversy du jour, or expounding some extremely simplistic, cliche take on a complex topic . It's no coincidence that these are the worst offenders when it comes to paywalling and punishing adblock users either. Their entire business model is predicated on clickbait, so the actual content is secondary.