To counter, I think that HN is being used as a testcase to shove techbro and VC ideology across all of tech. And secondly, its some of the most potent tech market research. Its a textsearch goldmine.

I believe YC knew what they were doing, and intentionally chose this course of action.

I'm guessing you're not in the VC or founder club. I only found about that https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented

> Additionally, founders of YC companies see each other's usernames show up in orange, which — although not an explicit benefit — does allow fellow YC founders to immediately identify one another in discussions.

Even with the significant bias here, I still read it. I also read lobsters as well, which is here minus techbro insanity.

You've stretched that analogy past the breaking point. Downvotes barely change your role and there's nowhere else to go up from there regardless of your posting quality. Peter Principle does not apply.