From my perspective, writing comments on Hacker News and posting submissions are completely different skills.
When there's a topic on Hacker News that I'm knowledgeable about or that sparks my curiosity, I know how to write a comment. It's a skill I've built up from all of the other internet forums I've participated in.
On the other hand, the primary place where I learn about news that would be an interesting submission to Hacker News is... Hacker News. There's also a fair amount of randomness to what is ranked as a good submission. If I had to find 3-5 quality submissions before I could post on Hacker News, there's no way I would be involved in the community.
The comments are also the primary value add of Hacker News for many users, myself included. Sights like Stack Exchange might have a much higher barrier to commenting, but in those cases the central way users interact with the site is something else (questions and answers for Stack Exchange).
When there's a topic on Hacker News that I'm knowledgeable about or that sparks my curiosity, I know how to write a comment. It's a skill I've built up from all of the other internet forums I've participated in.
On the other hand, the primary place where I learn about news that would be an interesting submission to Hacker News is... Hacker News. There's also a fair amount of randomness to what is ranked as a good submission. If I had to find 3-5 quality submissions before I could post on Hacker News, there's no way I would be involved in the community.
The comments are also the primary value add of Hacker News for many users, myself included. Sights like Stack Exchange might have a much higher barrier to commenting, but in those cases the central way users interact with the site is something else (questions and answers for Stack Exchange).