That’s true but often the discussion in the comments are.

This is unfortunately true. There are tons of IEEE spamferences. Which is a shame because there are also good IEEE-sponsored (or co-sponsored) conferences (I find ISCA, Hot Chips + Hot Interconnects, and SC to all be interesting systems conferences, for example.)

However IEEE Spectrum is neither a journal nor a conference - it's the flagship magazine of the IEEE.

But my impression of IEEE Spectrum as well as CACM is that they still contain good technical content written by experts, but they also feature junk/filler "articles" and blog posts written by serial contributors who seem to optimize article quantity over quality. Often the title or topic is the only good part.