Most of those are from old links, and they're not generating a lot of content. On the first page of results, the longest comment thread is 12.

The highest engagement is from a fairly recent answer by a retired celebrity developer (Alan Kay), perfectly targeted to HN, but several more of his threads got much less engagement. Similarly, a thread on the second page of HN results got over 200 comments, reminiscing about the NeXT.

One "hit" per three months is definitely not dead, but questions like this one are inspired by the way the site used to be a Silicon Valley darling and is now widely considered passe.

> competition is good

For the users, possibly. Not for someone who wants to start 'Quora, but a little different'.