It seems very counter-productive to good conversation to have to scroll so much to get past the top comment thread. It almost feels like information manipulation in how much this feature belittles all comments that are not the single most popular.
Often it's pages of scrolling just to get the the 2nd most popular reply.
This feels antithetical to what the engineering community* preaches about decentralization and improving communication.
Edit: added the word 'community'
