With the change in culture here, especially in the last 2-3 years, HN might as well be called Reddit News now. So it's not surprising that most people aren't consistent with their principles.

Was HN known for consistency of principles before? I don’t remember that.

Whenever an online community is anthropomorphized as an individual, it looks hypocritical. The only groups that don’t look hypocritical are monocultural backwaters of groupthink, permabans, and self-editing.