It's not assuming bad faith to point out that a comment is not in the spirit we're hoping for on HN and to politely ask the submitter to try to do better in future.

It is assuming bad faith to assert that an industry leader is expressing an opinion primarily for direct self-interest. And “stating an opinion shared by many” does not make for great discussion; it's repetitive and predictable and doesn't give us anything new to talk or think about.

The whole thread has been flagged now which is fine; the central topic has already had plenty of discussion here, and this thread is awful.

Sure, it's now been flagged off the front page, which is fine.

These lines in the guidelines are all directly or directionally relevant to this kind of comment.

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously...

Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

Don't be curmudgeonly. Thoughtful criticism is fine, but please don't be rigidly or generically negative.

Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.

Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.

Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead.

If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did.

I really don't know what you're trying to say. If you look at the comment feeds of dang and me (or sctb or pg before that), you'll be hard-up finding a single day in the past 15+ years where there haven't been several comments from at least one of us (usually more) asking or reminding people to observe the guidelines. That doesn't mean we claim or even try to cleanse HN of anything bad ever being visible; the immune system takes time. But HN would not survive more than a few days if the moderation was as absent as you seem to be suggesting.