HN is an ad platform - it's just maintaining the old style of providing actual value to bribe users into accepting the occasional ad organically, instead of min-maxing for engagement and providing nothing else.

Mentioning LessWrong and 4chan in the same breath made me chuckle, but it's actually a good summary of the modern Internet: to be ad-free, you need to either care very much, or simply not care at all. The middle of the road has been bought, fenced, and you need to pay (with money or attention) to access it.

Missing the point... What use is an agent there besides shit posting?

My point is the fight against scraping will be the same fight against agents.