Hacker News is impossible to please when it comes to Google recently. This is something that is virtually impossible to spin as a bad thing and somehow almost every comment is negative.
We have learned that Facebook were indeed running various online campaigns to smear Google's reputation, just to take the public heat and focus off themselves. Many people fell for those traps during that time. I personally feel that those effects are still lasting, or at least still lingering around the community even until this day.
Don't expect positive responses until they get those numbers back in the black.