But I do notice that HN tends to have a hard time with/disparage writing that doesn't state a clear thesis and move towards it directly. Writing that makes its point "between the lines" or through braiding apparently unrelated thoughts together and expecting the reader to finish the splice are not well received here.

I also think that, like consuming only social media probably atrophies your attention span, reading only "direct" prose atrophies your ability to experience the ride of other styles and receive what they have to give.

And again I don't really intend this as a value judgement. Both styles have their place and there is no moral imperative to enjoy all approaches to writing. But having a limited palate accidentally, being blind to that, and thinking the fault is entirely in anything that lies outside of it is in a very literal sense pathetic. And here I often sense that it is perceived as virtuous distance from foolishness instead.

I think that reaction's a combination of that sort of writing sometimes being amateurish wankery poorly-imitating better writers with better ideas, and an awful lot of tech- and science-nerd sorts having decided around 5th grade that they were already expert readers and literature and language classes were just a bunch of time-wasting made-up bullshit that couldn't possibly teach them to be better readers or writers. "It's this entire field that's wrong, not me!"

Poor literacy is almost as prevalent as poor math skills, folks are just less comfortable owning up to it. Plus a lot more people overestimate how good they are at it, I think, than do with math skills.

If an article is nonfiction, then get to the point and stay there, dammit.