Correct, for the most part I don't think that, because it tends to make the threads more generic. For example, in this case the topic was about GDPR and identifiers in real-time bid advertising. It's fine if that leaps a single hop to, say, privacy issues. But if it leaps more than that, to every bad thing that Google has ever done, then the discussion will simply be "Google bad" vs. "Google good", which is far too generic to be interesting. It's a bit like what happens when you blend too many paints together. Everything becomes the same shade of brown. And this problem gets much worse when the things people bring up are predictable, i.e. have been repeated from the past. That guarantees a predictable discussion, which although it may be very agitated, has zero curiosity in it—and curiosity is the whole point of this site (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
Yes curiosity is indeed what this site is about and if you see below HN user "philwelch," was interested & curious about Ji Qie's story as he wasn't familiar with it. I pointed it out to him and satisfying his and other HN readers interest & curiosity it received 14 upvotes. Aren't the upvotes saying the information was useful, their interest and curiosity was satisfied?
Though are you saying I should never talk about Google getting caught stealing IP where it's relevant on Hacker News(have you censored other members b4 on certain topics)? It does not satisfy readers curiosity or is helpful to other dreamers/innovators, ones who dont have Joi Ito (MIT student's advisor) on their side, in whats the best way forward when Google R&D sends an invite?
Ive been a HN reader and commenter since 2007 and spoken freely since. I hope I am to continue to do so!
I've written a bunch about this over the years if you or anyone wants more explanation: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...