Comment by snek_case
18 hours ago
Without wanting to sound overly pessimistic, I subjectively feel like comments on Hacker News have become more negative and cynical over the last 10 years. It often seems like the prevailing attitude is "let me try and point to a perceived flaw" or "here is why this is not good enough" rather than being helpful or supportive... We're staying away from the hacker ethos IMO.
It's by no means a perfect article, but the general message seems to be that we're not powerless to build the web we want, and you can host your own website, which is still true.
Assuming that your observation is true, I would guess the average age of HNers has increased YoY, which is likely to have something to do with it.
Whenever I see something I like, I vote it. It feels awkward to me to type a bland show of praise when many other users have already done (and will continue to do) the same*. When I see something I dislike or disagree with, I feel it easier to go into more detail as to why, as I rarely see people sharing similar criticisms.
* As a sidenote, people who just say "This." and "Cool." irk me, and I don't want to elicit the same annoyed reaction in others.