I disagree. They could have gone and shot a bunch of dogs and posted pictures on the internet. By your measurement 'many more people are already talking about them...'. Is this example extreme? Sure, but the point is that the measurement is not if people are talking about them, but if they get closer to their goals.

How can they take advantage of this to help them? The first step is do a 72 hour hackathon on any problem and produce results. Then come back, and say, "Show HN: We did the PG challenge anyway!"