Are you at all worried that the increased comment friction will cause us to lose a lot of users? I guess the counter argument could be made that if we lose people because they are upset they can't post angry/useless comments, we might be better off without those users. And if it's so many that HN ceases to be useful to everyone, it might be better for the world if HN didn't exist. Which is a sobering thought. The oth…
Not speaking for pg, but he's stated in the past that growth was never a goal for HN.
HN could lose a lot of users and still be no worse off than it was 4 years ago, and it was pretty OK 4 years ago.