Voting systems indirectly operate as propaganda that tells you what to believe and how to conform with the hive mind. “Good thought” is conveniently found at the top with a large number of virtual points, “bad thought” is hidden for you at the bottom in harder-to-read colour.
I surely am not the only one that often skips to comments without even reading the article, which is tantamount to saying “I don’t have time to form my own opinion. Tell me what to believe about this topic”
I have a different theory about why people don't read the articles: we miss forums where you could just start a conversation about something because you want to discuss it. Most articles get submitted to reddit and HN because someone is saying "hey guys, want to have a conversation about _____?" and they get upvoted because people say "sure, let's discuss that!" and the article is incidental to that.
I surely am not the only one that often skips to comments without even reading the article, which is tantamount to saying “I don’t have time to form my own opinion. Tell me what to believe about this topic”