I updated my comment with response to your deleted comment. The last line specifically about emotional anecdotes. However your example has a lot of other comment threads that do not support the “usds is disliked” conclusion.
What is disliked in your example is bureaucracy and domain guarding which can be found inside and outside of the government. That does not mean USDS is a bad or disliked program because it has inefficiencies. It also does not mean we need to audit and dismantle services and programs as a way to root out inefficiency.
> According to comments from previous years, nobody liked USDS. Everybody was bullshitting on it.
Who is everybody? HN commenters? Do you have evidence of this sentiment?
Emotional anecdotal comments should not be taken as public sentiment on an issue. They are often one sided and inaccurate.