You could argue that HN, too, is passive entertainment. Many posts are exactly “a novel problem someone else dealt with”.

It's something else entirely. Almost all the posts on /r/legaladvice are shouting into a void. Hopefully it helps, maybe there's some interesting side discussion...

But an update? That means there's actual feedback and conclusions! Something that's desperately lacking on that particular board.

It's not about reddit as a whole.