HP was definitely in a position to compete with apple, and always has been. They might not have been in a position to beat them, but you don't have to be on top to be profitable.
i hate it. hsts mixed with doh exist to take control, and transparency away from users, because most users never knew they had the option to begin with.
The interface also allow to comment, post and interact with the original HN platform. Credentials are stored locally and are never sent to any server, you can check the source code here: https://github.com/GabrielePicco/hacker-news-rich.