This is a deeply misleading headline. Other people have explained it as well, but Flashbots is a relay for transmitting transactions to the Ethereum network in a way that preserves their privacy (and exposure to something called MEV[1]). It's purely optional and the vast majority of transactions[2] do not actually pass through this relay. MEV is an interesting area of research[3].

Unrelated aside: why is the quality of Hacker News posts and comments on crypto so bad? I experience extreme Gell-Mann amnesia[4] almost every post I read. This is the industry I work in and the amount of misinformation produced and spread on Hacker News is absurd.

[1]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.05234

[2]: https://explore.flashbots.net

[3]: https://flashbots.notion.site/flashbots/mev-day-836f88806995...

[4]: https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2021/01/18/gell-mann-amnesia/