atlasobscura.com seems to show up an awful lot on HN, and I rarely find the links to be technically relevant or useful, but always full of ads. It would be nice to be able to filter them out
Not everyone is the same, and I appreciate your point of view as well.
Reading articles like this one gives you things to talk about, which makes you someone people are more keen to engage with. That will give you an edge in a lot of interactions but particularly in sales. If you can't sell then your startup will fail. That's why they're relevant.
You need to be able to talk to other people about what they are interested in. That requires broadening your interests. A few articles about things you wouldn't typically read can be very useful.
The WORST imho are the sites that ask for notification permission, to which my initial reaction is FUCK YOU... there's no call for that without a user initiated action.