This is silly; why should Pop Sci work so hard to "adapt" to a site feature whose existence is entirely under their control?
I suppose one could make the argument that Pop Sci failed to adapt to a cultural reality that websites must have comment systems. But I don't think that actually is a cultural reality. There are successful sites that have never had comments at all, and numerous publications have demoted their comment systems to a second screen or hidden tab, with no ill effects. If you look at hot new content platforms like Medium, Quartz, etc., they are built from day one without comments.
I think Pop Sci has adapted to a new reality--a reality in which meaningful conversation has migrated to conversation-centric platforms like social media and news aggregators (like HN).
