HN has plenty of flaws and cultural issues, but the stated intention here is to promote discussion, not "user engagement". Where Twitter/X promotes outright lies, here I typically take more issue with folks' lenses and biases. tl;dr: I trust HN orders of magnitude more than Twitter and crew.

Is Ycombinator paying out to their "content generators" here?

Also, while I can imagine one's HN reputation helping someone a job or find a venture partner in this little bubble, there is no comparison with Xitter's reach.