Also, the posts are structured to the way I have come to arrive at some conclusion, or some understanding. So it is very much written for my own benefit, and incidentally shared because well why not. Surely I'm not the only one who was confused, or ignorant, or just curious about $Topic... Just don't expect that I will rewrite the thing for some abstract audience persona and how their brain works. If something is weird or unclear or plain wrong, search is at hand. And if something is annoying, well there are certainly lots of other places to go to instead. So, no, I don't really think about who reads my stuff. These days, it must be all bots anyway. So be it.
But I do like to also "learn generously", and I love to share and talk the about stuff I end up publishing from my drafts and notes (which far exceed the stuff up there in public view). So when I feel like it, I share links in various places. Usually its crickets. Sometimes there is conversation.
The "share to HN" etc. stuff is in service of prompting people to share if they feel so inclined. And honestly, I don't think people share via those links. No data, just gut feel, given how long the site has been up, and how uncommon it is for not-me people to post links to HN.
As for the prominence of said links. It has been an eyesore and a long-pending thing to delete. Sometimes I use the site as a playground. That time, I wanted to see if what "they" say is true about putting sharing links up top, prominently. So I slapped that section in, during one of the layout refactors.
And so, the top of the posts got way too busy with those "see me! pick me! choose me!" links, and stayed because I couldn't bring myself to refactor yet again. (Also because there's not much to lose because someone got annoyed at the eyesore click-share links. Yeah, friend, I'm annoyed too. Sucks to be us.)
(edit: expand comment to clarify some thoughts)
Not uncommonly, people are salty in the comments. Mostly it's fun to ignore the salt, and let the community do its thing, while also trying to observe what's going on with my feelings. Sometimes it's fun, or necessary, to show up and respond to flip the thread from destructive to constructive. This is a skill I can get better at, and I feel my odds of being better are higher with topics I've thought about for a good long while, and so that balances out in favour of taking the risk to self-share.
It so happens the eyesore "pick me!" links are gone now, except they are in a draft layout refactor. But please don't ask I know when it's going to go live. Could be tomorrow (or rather today---it's 2am here---and in that delicious sleep-deprived fugue state say eff this, I'm done, send it).
Or it could be next year.
(: