Interesting... My first reaction to your post was "meh - surely he's exagerrating". But reading other replies to GP that were posted later made me reconsider. Very unconstructive replies, trying to bully the well articulated opinion... I have never seen anything like it on HN (though that's just my observation of course, maybe I was just lucky).

Do you think the people behind this are truly convinced of their cause or are they paid "web-fighters"?

I just don't know. I think some are paid and some are just IOTA holders with a great financial incentive to squash any valid criticism of IOTA. There really isn't much difference between the two groups when you think about it.