Still astounding in a place where "hackers" congregate.

Not really. Two is not a large number of comments. Turn on showdead in your profile and see the dreck that most users never see.

This place lost its hacker lustre at least 10 years ago.

I registered my first account in 2011 or so and even then it had plenty of "pro-big corporate" energy here.

It's a site that was founded and run by venture capitalists. It always had "pro-big corporate" energy. If for nothing else, because that's one of the potential exit strategies.

I know but there was a "hacker spirit" undercurrent that's been diminished of late, I feel

Meh, when I registered in 2012 people were writing the same thing.