You are definitely not crazy nor alone with watching these PR tactics. I dislike that so many MSFT employees/puppets/bots/fanboys frequent HN since Build conference 2015. I would prefer the HN of pre-Spring-2015 with news about venture capitalists, startups and software that matters to startups - and not corporate PR about software that doesn't make sense for startups. See how MySpace lost, look what software stack they used and how it burned through cash because of very expensive license fees, compare it to Facebook. Everyone who got burned by the Seattle guys once usually learn and avoid getting burned again.