By the comments here it looks like 8/10 people on HN just comment without actually reading the article itself. Google aren't scrapping the whole idea of balloons, they just found a better way and faster way to make it a profitable business.
Reddit trained me to comments first then article if it's worth it. I imagine it's the same for a lot of people. Far too often the top comment is telling you all about why the article you were about to read is complete bullshit.
I'm the same but that's because of the so-many bullshit articles I had to read before figuring this out. Now I read the comments first and learned to stay away from certain sources with frequent low quality content. Also, this happens when you give hackers imaginary points; they want to game the system.
