This seems to extend into any community where nobody has any skin in the game yet the topic has superficial qualities in which it can be knee-jerk judged (unlike, say, a book).

Some of the most unsettling behavior I've seen online is a thread on Reddit where an indie developer shared their game with /r/gaming. The reactions: "Looks like dogshit", "This really took you two years to build? lol", "Doesn't even work on Android? lol miss me with that garbage."

Like that /r/gaming thread, we on HN do the same thing with the superficial qualities of a project.

"Python in JS? Who the fuck would want this lol. It took you how long to build this dogshit? Yet another web developer who refuses to learn anything beyond JS." Our analysis goes no deeper than whatever was summed up in the Show HN title where the author is lucky if anybody even navigates to the Github repo and looks at the work involved.

I think it comes down to modern entitlement culture where we see the world as our personal buffet. Now combine that with the ease of sharing your opinion with the world.