Compared to the news sites you've mentioned, I've increasingly discovered that the primary reason I read things on HN is the page load times. The professional commentary, snark, and community of TechCrunch are lovely - but they simply aren't worth a load time fifteen times longer than a text page full of HN comments and a quick link to the article/startup in question. Makes me wonder what other things I would more readily consume with a primarily text driven interface...