I think that's just the medium, nothing unique to HN. Any sort of online forum where people post comments is going to be overwhelmingly biased towards negative comments- either people going on about how much they hate whatever the subject is (be it Elon Musk or Python or whatever), or people being contrarian about some aspect of the article, or people being negative or contrarian about other posters.
People are just much more likely to comment if they hate something than if they love something. Also if they disagree with something than if they agree. Comments in any online forum are not a uniform sampling of the views of the readers.
HN's saving grace is that many of the articles linked to are on subjects that are just obscure enough to avoid being overwhelmed by "this sucks/this rules" sorts of bikeshedding comments. Also most of the topics are complicated or obscure enough as to make them difficult targets for kneejerk nitpickery.
People are just much more likely to comment if they hate something than if they love something. Also if they disagree with something than if they agree. Comments in any online forum are not a uniform sampling of the views of the readers.
HN's saving grace is that many of the articles linked to are on subjects that are just obscure enough to avoid being overwhelmed by "this sucks/this rules" sorts of bikeshedding comments. Also most of the topics are complicated or obscure enough as to make them difficult targets for kneejerk nitpickery.