perhaps because it is an issue that resonates with the demographic of hacker news?

Agreed @aaren, in todays fast pace life, its becoming alarmingly simple to lose touch with friends. IMHO if you work in startup, its even easier.

Without it we wouldn't have had this great debate about male friendships. Sure, the original article may very well be crap, but the resulting debate is not.

It might be due to its linkbait title :/

Perhaps it highlights a potential problem and a market that needs to be disrupted.