They weren't forced by a nebulous system but by a for-profit company. Hackernews needs to be consistent - that for-profit company saw value there, and created that value. (In the ycombinator sense.) Do you really not see the difference between a broken window and a company getting people to pay it to install windows through legal pressure?

I'm disagreeing with the definition of "value" used around here - for normal companies, not patent trolls - and to show my disapproval with this notion I insist that the word value be applied here as well.