What is wrong with having someone edit and review? It is just feedback. If the writing itself is an assignment editing is normal. If the writing is part of another process maybe not.
For fly.io I can see the appeal of unedited content as it can be rougher (as in breaks style guides and whatnot) and I like that roughness in blogs. E.g. you might get a British idiom come through or a more conversational style.
Having an editor isn't wrong, but it's an luxury for something as small as a Hacker News comment or an email.
Paul having an editor isn't a luxury. His essays are edited because it's important for his business. He can easily justify a paying someone.
More to the point, we're contrasting Paul's essays to people who don't have the luxury. Paul's essays could be seen as less genuine, even if they seem wiser.
> His essays are edited because it's important for his business. He can easily justify a paying someone.
First he is not paying someone to edit these (any person I've seen appears to be unpaid and affiliated with HN in some way). Second he's not (as far as I can tell) angling these posts for business purposes (for example if the head of some corporation were doing that that would make sense).
That the 'studiedly mussed' style of fly.io blog posts comes across as 'unedited' for some is a terrific compliment, even more so for being unintended.
For fly.io I can see the appeal of unedited content as it can be rougher (as in breaks style guides and whatnot) and I like that roughness in blogs. E.g. you might get a British idiom come through or a more conversational style.